


Devil Went Down to Zadash

by DottoraQN



Series: Devil Went Down to Zadash [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Genderfluid Mollymauk Tealeaf, He/Him Pronouns for Mollymauk Tealeaf, Other, Past Blumentrio, Past Shadowgast, Slow Burn, They/Them Pronouns for Mollymauk Tealeaf, Trans Mollymauk Tealeaf, Weekly Updates, background beauyasha, background fjorester, or not. you pick your headcanon, smut in a separate chapter, social media influencer au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:49:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28177917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DottoraQN/pseuds/DottoraQN
Summary: Caleb Widogast is a programmer for a small startup in Zadash, who also runs an Instagram account for his cat, Frumpkin. One day, a comment catches Caleb's eye, and he is introduced to Mollymauk Tealeaf, an influencer whoalsohappens to live in Zadash. Follow their budding romance and cute group dates with their friends across the modern city of Zadash, which is totallynotmodeled off of Atlanta, Georgia.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Series: Devil Went Down to Zadash [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064243
Comments: 86
Kudos: 127





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to the longest thing I've written to date. This AU is pure indulgence. I missed doing things around my favorite city in 2020, so Caleb and Molly will do the things that I like to do. This fic will update weekly, for the most part, unless something happens. I have a ton of chapters already written and beta'd (by the lovely and skilled [Steelneena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena)), so posting regularly shouldn't be an issue. Fic will update on weekends.
> 
> Also, it wouldn't be a fic written by me if there wasn't some smut involved somewhere. The main fic will remain T, but smutty timestamps will be linked in their preceding chapters and posted in the _Devil Went Down to Zadash_ series.
> 
> Let's get started, shall we?

Caleb Widogast was a patient man, but there were some things that tried even his patience. Things like traffic on the 400 connector when he was trying to get home to the Trispires from work in downtown Zadash, when his _Uber Eats_ driver seemed to sit two minutes from his apartment for twenty minutes, or when Beauregard fucking Lionett was over 15 minutes late to their lunch plans. Caleb sighed, resting against the wall of the restaurant and pulling out his phone. Scrolling through his camera roll, he selected a picture that he had taken yesterday of the new cat tower that Chewy had sent Frumpkin. He could post a picture to Frumpkin’s account while he waited. His cat loved it, refusing to leave it even to eat, meowing incessantly for Caleb to bring him his food so that he could dine from the comfort of his new hammock.

The human sighed and typed that thought into the caption box on Instagram, putting in spacers with periods before entering the tags. He was surprised that Frumpkin’s account had blown up as much as it had in two years, since he was garbage at tagging photos. _I guess it is true, the internet really does love cats,_ Caleb thought to himself as he hit the post button and read over the caption.

_[Frumpkin’s latest haul from @Chewy! Thanks to them for sending over extra catnip treats with the cat tree, they know those are his favorite!_ _: @frumpkinsdad #frumpkinthecat #frumpkin #frumpkinsdad #feycat #familiar #findfamiliar #conjuration #bengal #orange #tabby #cattree #catsofinstagram]_

He switched apps for a moment to check his post from earlier on StackOverflow when his phone quickly started vibrating repeatedly. That would be the comments on Frumpkin’s newest photo. He scrolled through the comments of different racially themed emojis, smiling when he saw a comment from Jester.

_[@littlesapphirecos commented: u r sooooooooooo cuteee, Frumpkin! tell ur dad 2 come visit n bring u w/ him soooooooon ]_

He scrolled for a few more minutes, liking and replying to a few comments, and making sure to thank the sponsor of the post profusely when their PR person commented. As Caleb was about to put his phone away, a comment caught his eye. He looked up to make sure that Beau wasn’t sprinting towards him and then looked back down at his phone at the comment in front of him.

_[@tealeafstarot commented: You are such a cutie, darling! Enjoy that food and don’t be too much of a brat for your dad ]_

Most comments from strangers that Caleb got on Frumpkin’s account didn’t mention him directly, so, curious, Caleb clicked into the profile. Caleb’s grip on his phone tightened as he drank in the visual before him: a beautiful purple tiefling that was absolutely covered in scars and tattoos was wearing a bunny suit with a tail and the classic _Playboy_ ears. He looked down at the camera haughtily, holding a drink on a platter in his right hand. Before Caleb could stop himself he had opened the picture and was reading the caption, trying to learn more about the beautiful person in front of him.

_[Darling, I’m happy to pour you a drink if you’ll promise to be good for me xx . . . ._ _: @reaniphoto . . . . #playboy #bunny #bunnyhutch #abolethconbunnyhutch #thursdaynightbunnyhutch #louboutin #fishnets #tiefling #tieflingmodel #nonbinary #genderqueer #purple #black #sexy #cute #adorable]_

Caleb shook his head and swallowed, trying to clear his head of the effect this picture was having on him. He swiped away from the photo and clicked on the tiefling’s story, listening attentively as the tiefling explained that he’d be doing an “intro to tarot” stream later that evening. The tiefling ran through his apartment with his phone, throwing himself down on the couch next to a large woman with black to white ombre hair. She smiled at the camera shyly, nodding along as he talked about the hike that they were going to go on and how he hoped they’d see deer, though the trail was in the city proper, so they probably wouldn’t.

“Yeah! So anyway, Yash and I are gonna take off, but I’ll see you lovelies later! Get those questions prepped! I can’t wait to talk to you all about my decks and my crystals and maybe do some readings. Ta for now!”

The story played out the tiefling’s words, his lilting accent filtering through the tinny speakers of Caleb’s knock off airpods. The story closed and Caleb finally looked at the bio info for the beautiful tiefling. Mollymauk. From Zadash. Caleb clicked through a few of the links in Mollymauk’s Carrd, but they were mostly merch links and links to causes he believed in, nothing that would tell Caleb more about the man.

“Yo, Widogast, pick your jaw up off the ground. What’s gotten into you?” Beauregard’s voice said directly next to Caleb, causing the ginger to jump.

“ _Scheiße_ , Beauregard, do not do that,” Caleb said, tucking his phone into his pocket and tilting his head back against the wall.

“Seriously, what’s up with you? You’re never that focused on your phone, man,” Beau said, gesturing towards the door of the Tal’Doreian restaurant that the two friends had agreed to meet at. Caleb followed her, running his finger over the buttons on the side of his phone in his pocket and chewing at his lip.

“Nothing, I just saw the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life on Instagram,” Caleb said, following Beau and the hostess of the restaurant to the proffered table.

“Oh yeah?” Beau asked, sliding into the booth that the hostess indicated. “Lemme see.”

Caleb unlocked his phone and slid it across the table to his friend. She picked it up, her brows furrowing in concentration. As she scrolled through the pictures, Caleb started to read through the menu, but his thoughts remained on the lavender tiefling on his phone screen.

“Yeah, um. He lives in Zadash,” Beau said slowly, once she had scrolled to her satisfaction.

“ _Ja,_ he does, it says it right there on his profile, Beauregard,” Caleb shot back snarkily, looking at Beau over the menu.

“No, dude, I mean like. I saw him today.”

“ _Was?_ ” Caleb said, slapping the menu down on the table to give Beau his full attention.

“We went hiking together,” Beau said, sliding Caleb his phone back. Caleb tilted his head and stared intently at his friend, waiting for more explanation. Beau looked up from her menu and was taken aback by Caleb’s expression.

“What?”

“Tell me more,” Caleb demanded.

“Ioun’s tits, calm down, dude,” Beau said, looking back down at her menu. “I joined a group that goes hiking with a nature instructor. Real buff woman. Really hot. Cool black hair that’s dyed white at the tips, super goth, whole nine. I think I’m in love. Anyway. She’s got her roommate with her today and it’s this purple fucker.”

“There is one degree of separation between us now...” Caleb mused to himself.

“What, you gonna try to hit that?” Beau asked, smirking at Caleb’s daze.

“Nein, Beauregard, why would he want to be with someone like me?” Caleb said. When he received a glare from Beau he added: “Also I am... not good at ‘sliding into the DMs,’ as you would say.”

“Whatever, he was annoying as hell anyway,” she said, turning back to her menu.

“Ja, and you’re a lesbian,” Caleb quipped back, picking up his own menu again.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Any time he opened his mouth it was distracting you from his roommate. What’s her name?” Caleb said, feeling Beau’s glare intensify.

“Oh gods... uhhhhhhh Yasha! Her name is Yasha. @lightningtrails on insta. I followed her immediately,” Beau supplied, looking wistful.

The two sat in companionable silence for a moment until the waitress came to take their orders. Beau ordered fish and chips, while Caleb chose the more in season chicken parmesan. While waiting for their food to arrive, Beau pulled out her phone and scrolled through her notifications, yelping and jumping up to perch on the seat seconds later. Caleb, now suitably accustomed to Beau’s exclamations, looked up at her from the message he was sending to Veth.

“What is it?” he asked.

“She! She followed me back! What does that mean??? Why would she follow me back? Do you think I have a chance?” The words tumbled out of Beau’s mouth, the woman hardly having time to take a breath between sentences.

“I do not know, @pentamarketcrossfit,” Caleb teased. “Perhaps you should try to talk to her? Come on, Beau, slide into those DMs.” Beau glared at him, flopping back down onto the bench of the booth.

“I... can’t talk to girls online,” she said quietly. Caleb stifled a chuckle.

“Then we will suffer together.”

*******

Caleb opened his phone for the third time in the last five minutes and cursed. He was never that invested in social media and mostly made an account for Frumpkin because Jester had told him to. So why, now that he had followed Mollymauk, was he so invested in what this man posted? He could look at his pictures easily enough without having to check to see if Mollymauk had gone live yet every two minutes.

He threw the phone across the couch and flopped back, grabbing a pillow and pushing it into his face, groaning as he did. As he lay there, praying for the sound of a livestream notification to play on his phone, Caleb felt small paws kneading at his leg.

“ _Was willst du, Kätzchen?_ ” Caleb asked his cat, taking the pillow off of his face and dropping it next to the couch. Frumpkin quickly took the space that the pillow had taken up, curling up across Caleb’s upper chest and purring loudly.

“ _Ja_ , you are a menace, you know that? And heavy,” Caleb cooed at Frumpkin. He would have to make sure to put the cat on a stricter diet. “This is why they used to say that cats stole your breath, because I can barely breathe with you sitting on my chest.”

As he was settling in to pet Frumpkin, Caleb’s phone beeped, alerting him that the livestream he had been waiting for had started. He put Frumpkin on the ground, inviting a cacophony of indigent meows as he retrieved his phone from the other end of the couch.

“ _Sei ruhig, Katze,_ ” he murmured, opening Instagram to see Mollymauk smiling dazzlingly at the camera and chatting amicably with his audience.

“Hello, you lovelies! I’m so glad that all... wow! There’s ten k of you here! Thank you! Anyway, today we’re going to be talking about intro to tarot, cause it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so I feel like we’re overdue. So, first I want to introduce you to my decks...”

For the next three hours, Caleb watched Mollymauk talk about the different types of tarot cards he had. Caleb had a cursory knowledge of tarot reading from when Jester dragged him to a fortune teller a year ago, and it had hit pretty close to home. The woman had told him that the end of his previous relationship was not his fault; it was the result of a breakdown in communication between his hyperlogical partner and himself. Caleb had been the one to bring up ending things with Essek, but it had been mutual, in the end. Essek couldn’t give Caleb what he needed and Caleb felt like he had to mask emotions around the drow. The two had tried to stay friends, but both got increasingly busy with work and their conversations slowly stopped all together.

The ginger shook his head, ridding thoughts of his ex from his mind. He was done dwelling on this. Over the rest of the livestream, Caleb soaked up more information about tarot than he'd ever thought to learn. There were different types of decks for different purposes. Mollymauk had both Rider-Waite-Smith and Thoth decks, though he wasn’t fond of Aleister Crowley and thus he used the Thoth deck less. He also had four oracle decks, not including the one he was painting for himself. Caleb didn’t interact with the livestream at all, choosing instead to be a passive observer. He had joined the stream with the intention of listening to Mollymauk’s soothing Tal’Doreian accent, but he surprised himself by actually internalizing the information presented.

“Well, that’s the time I have today, thank you all for being here! If you have more questions, I’ll be doing another stream in two weeks for tarot basics and card tricks! I’ll update the info in my bio closer to time. Have a lovely night, darlings!”

The livestream ended and Caleb was left staring at Mollymauk’s profile in silence. Frumpkin, who had since gotten over his earlier upset at being displaced from Caleb’s chest, sat nestled against Caleb’s leg. He let out a _murp_ when Caleb moved, announcing his displeasure at his sleeping spot being disturbed.

“ _Katze_ , I have to go to bed. I have work tomorrow,” Caleb explained to Frumpkin matter-of-factly.

Frumpkin, on his part, blinked knowingly at Caleb. He turned around, his tail high in the air and leapt into his new cat tree, settling into the hammock and yawning, looking at Caleb as if to say “Fine, be that way.”

Caleb chucked and proceeded to get ready for bed, thinking over Molly’s smile and the way he laughed as he brushed his teeth. When he caught himself fondly smiling at nothing in particular in the mirror, Caleb slammed his toothbrush back into its holder and stared at himself, sticking a finger in his reflection’s face.

“You are not going to fall for some beautiful man on Instagram who doesn’t even know you exist. Get it together, Widogast,” he said. His reflection scowled back at him, unanswering. Caleb sighed and hung his head over the sink. He could deal with these unbidden feelings later.

That night Caleb Widogast dreamt of Mollymauk Tealeaf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, forgot to add some things, sorry! This fic is going to be HEAVILY multimedia, so expect to see ~~bad~~ art from yours truly! I've linked everything in a twitter thread [here](https://twitter.com/DottoraQN/status/1340459330265616386?s=20) for easy viewing of the high rez images.


	2. Chapter 2

Jester sat at her vanity waiting for Molly to message her that he was on his way over. She was getting ready for the monthly cosplay contest at one of her favorite bars, _Battle and Brew._ The gaming bar boasted that it was the first-ever established gamer bar in Wildemount, though everyone that Jester knew heavily disputed that fact. Lots of places liked to claim they were the first; it made them more interesting. One thing she knew was that her mom’s club was actually the first entirely gender inclusive strip club in Wildemount and that she was working with someone named Gilmore to establish one in Tal’Dorei.

It was very easy for Jester to get distracted, her array of makeup spread out in front of her as she contemplated putting on her costume or doing her face first. Ultimately, she decided on makeup, as Molly’s help would be invaluable in zipping up the cumbersome Zentai suit. It was only 2:30 and Jester knew she had four whole hours before they needed to leave for the bar, so she tapped open her phone and messaged Fjord, the bartender that worked at _Battle and Brew._

‹ Fjord Stone  
scotchnshanties   
fjord!!!!!!!!! hi!!!!!!  
  
Hiya, jessie  
  
Howre you  
  
im gooooooooood  
  
what r u gonna dress up as 2nite???????   
  
I wasnt gonna dress up...  
  
but fjoooooooooooooooord  
  
i told u ud look sooooooooooooo cute a s mcree!!! and we would match! im d.va!   
  
Jester, where am I supposed to pull a full fledged Overwatch costume from??  
  
idk but i know ur hair works and u own a cowboy hat  
  
ive seen u wear it  
  
Fiiiine jes I’ll wear the hat and I wont shave. Good?  
  
yeeeeeeees ur so handsome  
  
  
  
...thank you?  
  
see u tonite!!!!!!!!  Message...

Satisfied that she was going to get what she wanted from Fjord, Jester was about to turn back to doing her makeup when her phone buzzed again. Caleb, her friend who she knew through her personal trainer, had sent her a DM on instagram. She was popular tonight!

‹ Caleb  
frumpkinsdad   
Hello Jester, I see that you are going to a cosplay contest tonight, so I hope I'm not interrupting, but who is @tealeafstarot?  
  
oh no, claeb, i always hav time 4 u!   
  
*caleb  
  
hes this influencer that i followed a few years ago and we did a collab when this cute goth company asked us 2!!!!   
  
he juts moved 2 zadash 2 live with his best friend, smth about starting over   
  
idk i met him a few years ago when the sponsor flew us both out to emon for a shoot  
  
we just kinda clicked and have gotten along ever since!!!   
  
why do you ask caleby????!  
  
Oh, no reason, he follows me on the frumpkinsdad account.  
  
ooooooooh do u think hes cuuuuuuute????!!!????   
  
hes totally ur type caleb... hes a purple twink!!!!  
  
Jester I do not have a type.  
  
yes u do, its biceps and purple twinks!!!   
  
Jester.  
  
biceps: astrid n eodwulf  
  
purple twink: essek  
  
Anyway, what are you cosplaying tonight?  
  
im cosplaying d.va, from overwatch!!!  
  
have u played any of the games i recommended yet caleb  
  
No, Jester, I spend most of my time at work, although I did put on that anime about clothes in the background.  
  
oooooooooooooh kill la kill is SOOOOOOOOo good  
  
i want 2 cosplay ryuko soooooooooooooo bad  
  
but you know i feel like my abs need to be better  
  
and yeah everyone can cosplay whatever they want but you know this is for meeeeee so idk  
  
oh. my. gods! gayleb!   
  
do u want 2 come 2 the bar with me 2nite?????  
  
u can watch me compete and maybe meet someone????   
  
i kno ur trying 2 get back in2 dating  
  
omg CALEB im sooooo sorry   
  
lol  
  
im typing sooooo fast  
  
*sigh* I will see if I can drag Veth or Beauregard along.  
  
If I can, I will be there.  
  
OK GOOD.   
  
see you 2niiiiite Message...

Jester cackled to herself for a moment before finishing her eyeshadow, thinking exactly of how she was going to set up her two friends. Caleb and Molly would be so cute together, so it was Jester’s duty, as their connection, to set them up. Maybe while she was at it she could set up Molly’s roommate with Caleb’s old roommate... Having finished most of her makeup, Jester was ready to set her masterful plan into action. She pulled up a particularly cute picture of Caleb’s cat, Frumpkin, and sent Molly a message.

‹ Mollymauk Tealeaf  
tealeafstarot   
omggggg molly hiiiiiii!!!!!!!!  
  
are you going 2 wear a costume 2nitttee??  
  
Haha, no jes, I’m just me  
  
oh boo, u should totally cosplay with me sometime you kno   
  
Yeah, yeah, so you say lol  
  
  
  
Anywayyyyyyy I found this cuuuuuute cat and I thought u would just loooooove him!!!!   
  
  
  
  
  
also wanted 2 say thank u 4 going with me 2nite 2 carry my stuff since fjord is working   
  
Anything for you, love!  
  
And omg that cat is so cute  
  
  
  
Is that frumpkin?  
  
YES!!!!!!   
  
  
  
u follow him omg???  
  
Oh yeah  
  
Follow his dad too  
  
That man is easy on the eyes  
  
  
  
Shame he doesn’t post his face more  
  
  
  
omg molly do u have A CRUSH on frumpkins dad?!?!!?!?  
  
  
  
Eh?  
  
He’s cute  
  
I know nothing else about him  
  
but hes soooooooooo cute right?  
  
  
  
Yeah...  
  
His blue eyes are  
  
  
  
...  
  
Wait why are you asking  
  
no reason  
  
Jester...  
  
JESTER?????  
  
Message...

With that done, all that Jester had to do was wait for Molly to show up. She could worry about trying to push Caleb and Molly towards each other when they were at the bar later, if she wasn’t preoccupied with trying to flirt with Fjord. On second thought, she _might_ be preoccupied trying to flirt with Fjord the entire night, all things considered.

Jester looked down over herself. Her underwear was cute and it matched perfectly, the pink lace standing out nicely against her blue skin. She sighed. Of course she had chosen to cosplay the one character that barely showed any skin. Jester wasn’t worried about being distracting, but if she was ever going to get the uptight Mister Stone to kiss her, let alone ask her out, she felt like she needed cleavage.

She turned back to the mirror and went through her mental checklist of things she needed for her costume to be complete. Wig cap? Check. Makeup? In progress. Wig? After makeup. Zentai suit? When Molly got to her apartment. Maybe she had overestimated the time that she’d need to get ready today... Jester got up and walked over to her couch, flopping down and flipping on the _Great Westruun Baking Show._ She had time to watch an episode or two before Molly got there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update on 1/16/21: fixed the broken images because of AO3's update


	3. Chapter 3

Mollymauk Tealeaf sat on his couch scrolling through Instagram while he waited for Yasha to be done in the bathroom. Well, ‘sat’ might be a bit tame. Molly was draped over the back of the couch on his back, holding his phone above him. He had already almost dropped it on his face twice, but that didn’t stop him from getting comfortable. He posted a few selfies on his story, making sure to tag Yasha in each of them. He was about to upload another when he squinted at the brown skinned human that was leaning on Yasha’s other side, trying to remember her name and insta handle.

It took him a few minutes, but her name eventually came to him: Beauregard, or Beau, as she had requested the group call her. He had joked that they had that much in common once he realized that they were completely at odds on most other things. She had good naturedly punched his shoulder and laughed. It still hurt a little.

As he scrolled, he saw that Beau had posted a video from lunch with a friend after she left the trails.

“Hey, Caleb, say something for my story!”

“Beauregard are you filming?”

“Duh. Say something funny.”

“Nein, I am lucky you didn’t catch me with food hanging out of my mouth.”

“You’re no fun, man!”

“I waited for you for forty-five minutes!”

“Yeah, I was busy.”

“Busy pining over-”

“HEY-”

Molly snickered at the bickering between the two obviously close friends when the story cut out, his tail flicking lazily. They reminded him of himself and Yasha. He surmised that the pretty Zemnian, Caleb, had been about to say Yasha’s name in reference to whomever Beau was pining over.

Despite the fact that he had been scrolling through Caleb’s profile all day, Molly clicked through the username for @frumpkinsdad and began scrolling again. He paused on the singular picture Caleb had posted of himself, as he had so many times before. Most of the posts were of food, Frumpkin, or some sort of small electronics, but this post was Caleb sitting in a chair reading a book. He had an intense look on his face, the book in his hands looking thick and heavy, both physically and in subject matter.

Whatever “Arcane Circuits” was, Molly wasn’t sure that he even wanted to know. He was content to look at the picture of Caleb No-disclosed-last-name and imagine that focused and intense gaze being turned on him. It made him shiver. His tail twitched a bit at the thought, uncontrollable as ever when it came to... _feelings._

“Your turn, Molly,” Yasha’s voice called from across the apartment.

“Hey, wait!” he said, jumping off the couch and tripping, nearly face planting into the carpet. “Who is this?”

Yasha took Molly’s phone and scrolled through Caleb’s Instagram briefly, passing the phone back to Molly when she was done.

“It’s mostly food pictures,” she said dryly.

“Yeah, I can see _that_ ,” Molly said. “You probably follow his cat. It’s frumpkinfeycat. You like cats.”

“Eh?” Yasha said, squeezing the towel she had wrapped her hair up in, “I do follow the cat, but I don’t know anything about his owner. Though from what you showed me, it seems like he’s pretty familiar with the hot girl from the hike earlier.”

“Beau,” Molly said helpfully. “You said you followed each other. Are you going to ask her out?”

“I... no,” Yasha said, blushing. “If she comes back to the trail, maybe... actually, no. Probably not.”

“Yashaaaaa,” Molly whined, hugging his friend. “You deserve to be happy.”

“Yeah, I know,” Yasha said, looking down and away from Molly. “But she was so pretty and so strong and she probably doesn’t even like women.”

“Yasha.” Molly said flatly, looking up at his friend. She was a head and a half taller than him, but he stood on his tiptoes to get in her face, his tail winding around her ankle. “Did you _see_ her? She _definitely_ likes women.”

Yasha’s blush deepened, coloring the tops of her shoulders a dusky pink to match her face. “You can’t stereotype, Molly.”

Molly barked out a laugh; unwinding his tail, stepping back, and gesturing to himself. “I am a walking pansexual genderfluid stereotype. It is within my purview to stereotype others.”

From the hike earlier, Molly was still wearing his favorite red hot pants and a cropped black tank top inscribed with a planchette and the word “pan-hexual” in the pansexual flag colors. Yasha gave him a onceover and laughed aloud, dropping her mock stern look.

“Don’t you have something to get ready for with Jester tonight?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah!” Molly exclaimed, pulling his top off over his head and sprinting off towards the bathroom. He shut the door, but thought better of it, poking his head out to yell one last thing at Yasha: “I’ll do your chores for a week if you ask Beau out!”

He slammed the door behind him, cranking the handle of the shower to the hottest setting it could go and stepped in, hissing at the searing water. As the steam enveloped him, Molly’s thoughts turned to his usual shower daydreaming.

Molly hummed a melody of _Abba_ songs to himself as he shampooed his hair and wished that there was another person with him to join him in the shower. It had been so long since he had been close like that to someone, and while Yasha was happy to let Molly lay on top of her and cuddle all he wanted, neither of them wanted _that_ type of intimacy from the other.

He imagined someone joining him in the shower, slipping under the stream of hot water behind him and wrapping their arms around his torso. Molly wrapped his arms around himself and shivered, looking over his shoulder and almost expecting to see... red hair?

Usually the second participant of Molly’s fantasies didn’t have distinct features, but he was definitely imagining Caleb standing behind him in the shower. Molly imagined how nice the human’s pink skin would look against his as he sang along to the soundtrack in his head, his tail bobbing in time with the song.

“ _Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! a man after midniiiight,_ ” he sang under his breath, trying to emulate the parts of the dance that he remembered from when he had seen the musical with Yasha last summer. After almost slipping, falling, and cursing himself out for not putting the grip pads down in the shower like he meant - and forgot - to do every single time he bathed, Molly stopped dancing and turned back to finishing the task at hand. He poured a bright orange body wash into his hand and passed it over his skin, imagining Caleb doing this for him instead, the human’s skin flushed from the heat of the shower.

Several more bars of various _Abba_ songs and a thought that quickly turned more salacious than intended later, as ruminations of these kinds tended to do, Molly shook his head and decided that was enough fantasizing for the day. He quickly finished showering, banishing his useless daydreaming from his mind. He hopped out of the shower and wrapped himself in a robe, sprinting back to his room to decide what to wear.

After tossing out four shirts, he settled on a black collared number covered in white swirls and colorful abstract shapes. The young actress from Stranger Things had worn the shirt in one of the early episodes and Molly had absolutely fallen in love with the colorful clothing from the time period. He had even teased Yasha about buying them matching sailor shirts like the ice cream shop employees, which earned him a glare. When he texted her the picture of the uniforms in his online shopping cart, he’d gotten a call and a disappointed talking to. He’d had to assure Yasha that he didn’t actually intend to buy the shirts, but it was fun to tease her. Still, he tried to get her to be the Robin to his Steve for Harvest’s Close, but she had just put in her fake vampire teeth and tossed a red cloak over her shoulders and hissed at him, both of them dissolving into laughter.

Molly tucked the shirt into his favorite burgundy skinny jeans, a moon embroidered on one back pocket and a sun on the other. He admired his ass in the full length mirror mounted on his wall before slipping into his favorite pair of combat boots, grabbing his keys, and sprinting for the door, tail lashing excitedly.

“Yash, I’m headed to Jessie’s!” he called.

“Bye, Molly! Say hi for me!” Yasha replied.

“I will! Talk to Beau!” Molly hollered through the closing door. It slammed shut behind him before she could get in a reply and he skipped happily to his beat up car, his hair already drying into his signature haphazard curls.

Jester was mostly done getting dressed by the time that Molly arrived at her apartment, but he did still have to help her into the Zentai suit. She was dressed as D.Va, from Overwatch, a game that Molly was cursorily familiar with. She pulled up a picture on her phone for him to compare, which puzzled Molly for a moment.

“Ok you look super cute, Jes,” he said. “Seriously, don’t get me wrong, adorable. But she has this huge mech? Are you hiding this from me somewhere in your tiny apartment?”

“No, silly!” she said, tossing him a plushie. He caught it deftly and looked over the pink robot stuffed animal while Jester continued: “You know I thought about building her mech as like a statue and storing it at my dad’s place, but it was a lot of work and I couldn’t bring it to cons and stuff, so it would really just be for pictures at home and I can do that with Photoshop. I need to photoshop them anyway cause there’s nowhere around here that looks like the game and if I’m going to self shoot I have to do everything myself. You’ve seen my edits, I’m good with Photoshop.”

“Yeah, you are,” Molly agreed. “Why don’t you talk to Reani? She does like ALL of my professional photos and is super reasonable.”

“Why don’t you cosplay with me and introduce me?” Jester shot back. Molly groaned.

“I’ve said I will, but I’m no good at the actual ‘making the costume’ bit. This embroidery on my ass is all I can do,” he said, swiveling his hips and pointing behind him, gesturing with his tail to show off his handiwork.

“Not true!” Jester crowed, snapping her eyeshadow palette shut and swatting at him with her tail. “I know you made one of your Harvest’s Close costumes once!”

“Yeah, once!” Molly said, laughing. He had found a tutorial online for how to make Harley Quinn’s jacket from the newest movie and spent hours weaving caution tape through mesh fabric. It was a lot of work, but he thought he had turned out very cute. He’d even gotten Yasha to be Catwoman with him that year.

“Ok, it’s 6:30, we need to leave!” Jester announced. Molly nodded and held out his arms to be loaded up. Jester deposited a tote bag with what seemed like an entire makeup kit in it into his arms and quickly shoved in an extra set of clothes on top of everything else.

“Do you really need all of this, Jes?” he asked, tossing the heavy bag over his shoulder.

“Yes, of course!” Jester said indignantly. “Though we can leave it in your car if you want. You just have to go get it if I need it.”

“Ok, ok!” Molly laughed. “I’ll keep your phone and wallet in my pockets and keep your wardrobe in my car. Lets go!”

The two friends piled into Molly’s beater Civic, the shoddy burgundy paint flaking off to reveal the light blue underneath. Molly sighed and flexed his hands on the wheel of the car, shouting at his phone to set a course for Battle and Brew, the bar where Jester’s cosplay contest was being held. As they drove, the two chatted amicably about the bartender and how cute he was, Jester hoping fervently that he had taken her recommendation on who he should dress up as for the themed costume night, her tail thumping against the door excitedly.

Molly sighed internally. He wished he had someone to flirt with. He could always try to pick up someone at the bar, but the type of people that came to this bar usually were much more interested in his follower count than Molly himself. They pulled into the parking lot and Jester bounced out of the car, practically vibrating with excitement. Molly smiled and clicked all of the locks closed, the lack of auto locks on his car one of the things that made it cheap enough for him to purchase. The car sufficiently locked, Molly followed Jester into the bar, ready for whatever was to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Every week I look forward to the lovely comments you've all been leaving <3 I promise that Molly and Caleb will actually meet soon... ish. Also, thank you again to [Steelneena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena) for betaing and to everyone in the widomauk discord for hyping me up and saying such sweet things <3<3<3<3<3
> 
> Also, here's the twitter thread for this update's art: [thread](https://twitter.com/DottoraQN/status/1345531799531872256?s=20).
> 
> For Molly's tattoos, I used this brush designed by [GiannivalArt](https://twitter.com/giannivalart/status/1345082637812080640) on twitter.


	4. Chapter 4

Molly wrenched open the door after Jester and smiled at the hostess, Mint, when she asked to see his and Jester’s IDs. He produced both and handed them over to the pretty tiefling woman. She looked over them quickly, handing them back and giving them both wristbands to wear. Molly helped Jester put hers on and then put his own on, smiling and waving at Mint as he tried to follow Jester into the crowd. The bar was crowded, but it wasn’t nearly as crowded as it had been when he had come to watch a speedrunner play _Mario Maker 2_ with Yasha.

Predictably, Molly found Jester by the corner of the granite bartop, the shorter tiefling trying her best to lay on the charm with the cute bartender, Fjord. The two had argued over the half-orc a little bit when they first came to the bar together, Jester immediately calling dibs and Molly getting indignant. He claimed that just because she shouted first, that didn’t mean that he shouldn’t get a chance, and also calling dibs on a person wasn’t great. Jester at least agreed to the second point, but after having a singular conversation with Fjord, Molly had decided that despite how hot the half-orc was, they didn’t share nearly enough in common for whatever Molly was looking for to be viable.

“So, Fjord,” Jester was saying as Molly walked up to her and flashed Fjord a quick smile. The half-orc looked between the two tieflings and blushed, returning his attention to Jester as she rambled on. “Basically, you would look amazing in a tuxedo and I need a Mamoru for this photoshoot I have planned and I’m gonna be cosplaying Usagi in her white dress, you know, _that_ dress, and I really wanted to do a couple’s shoot, but I have no one who will dress up with me and no offense to Molly, but he really doesn’t have the stature to pull off Mamoru and I don’t think he can lift me either-”

“We know, but, hey!” Molly interjected, smiling and poking Jester in the arm with his tail, playfully indignant. Jester stuck her tongue out at him and turned back to Fjord.

“Anyway, you would be _so_ perfect and I really want to spend more time with you so even if you don’t want to cosplay with me, which you totally don’t have to if you’re uncomfortable, but I don’t like it that I only see you when you’re working here and-”

Molly touched Jester on the shoulder lightly, pulling her attention away from the bartender for a moment. “I’m going to go play _Beat Saber_ , come grab me if you need your phone or ID, ok?” he said. Jester nodded.

“Go have fun! Maybe find someone to flirt with, _hur hur!_ ” she said. Molly flashed her a grin and walked off to the tune of Jester returning to talking Fjord’s ear off.

The virtual reality set up that _Battle and Brew_ had was very recently upgraded, the headset being swapped out for the newer model with the wireless adaptor. Molly had accidentally clotheslined himself enough times on VR headsets to know how valuable that was. The patrons of the bar, though there were many of them, hadn’t formed a line behind the VR station like they often tended to do at these cosplay night events, so Molly jumped on the opportunity to get a few practice songs in.

The attendant at the VR station helped Molly artfully thread the headset around his horns, making sure that the straps were snug and that Molly had a pair of fully charged controllers. He thanked them, rolling his head around his shoulders to get used to the weight of the headset over his eyes. Clicking through the song list, Molly picked out an electroswing song that he knew he had failed multiple times the last time he played, toggled no fail on, and began his practice.

Fortunately for him and everyone else in the bar that was waiting to play _Beat Saber_ , Molly quickly found his rhythm and was hitting the requisite percentage of notes not to fail in no time. He decided to do one more song before checking in on Jester and making sure that there wasn’t a large line formed behind him. The attendant would let him know if he needed to give someone else a turn, but Molly’s eyes were getting a little tired from the sustained light anyway. He flipped through the songs, quickly finding his favorite _Vocaloid_ song and trying his damndest not to sing along with the lyrics.

When the song was over, Molly waved in what he thought was the direction of the attendant before starting to pick at the velcro of the headset straps himself. The human quickly helped him out of the rig, gesturing for the first person in line to take his place. Molly smiled at them and offered a word of luck, walking backwards out of the VR area. It was then that Molly turned to go find Jester and walked straight into a red headed human hunched over a gaming chair.

“Fuck, sorry, I wasn’t looking where I wa-” Molly began.

“Oh, _sheiße_ , I’m so sorry, I-” the human said simultaneously. Both men looked each other in the eye and tried to begin again, Molly faltering when he realized exactly where he had seen those piercing blue eyes before.

“ _Bitte_ , uh, please, you go-” the human started again.

“S-sorry, go ahead, I-” Molly said at the same time. The human looked like he was going to cry for a moment, before a smile played over his features and he began to laugh. His laughter was infectious and Molly found himself laughing along with him. Once they had both recovered, Molly stuck his hand out.

“Hi. I’m sorry I stepped on your foot. I’m Mollymauk, Molly to my friends,” he said. The human took his hand and shook it, a little hesitant at first, but Molly noted the firmness of the handshake once the human seemed to get over his reservation.

“ _Hallo_ , Mollymauk,” the human said. “I am Caleb W-Widogast... I... think I follow you on- on Instagram.”

“Oh?” Molly said, raising his eyebrows; traitorously, his tail swished out behind him again at the admission. “That’s awesome! I think I follow you-your cat! I follow you too. Both of you. And both of you are really cute. Shit, um, sorry, that was probably uncalled for.”

“Oh, _ja, nein,_ um... I think you a-are quite attractive as well,” the human said under his breath. Molly’s eyebrows shot up even higher. Had he heard Caleb correctly in the loud bar?

“What?” he asked, tilting his head like a cat and smiling questioningly.

“What?” Caleb said, more incredulous of himself that he had said something so forward, or so Molly thought.

“Oh. My. GODS!” a perky voice said very close to Molly’s ear. He pulled back and looked down at Jester who was standing beside him and bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet excitedly.

“I can’t believe that you guys met without me! Molly this is Cay-leb,” Jester continued, drawing out the two syllables of Caleb’s name so that it sounded like two words. “I know him because his old roommate is my best friend ever besides you and she’s also my fitness coach! Cay-leb, I know Molly cause we did a collab on insta a few years ago like I told you!”

“It is... It is v-very good to meet you, Mister Mollymauk,” Caleb said. It was dimly lit inside the bar for atmosphere, but Molly could have sworn that he saw a pretty flush creep up over the human’s cheeks. Caleb continued, “Jester, may I speak with you for a minute?”

“Of course Cay-leb, what’s wrong?” Jester said. Caleb jerked his head towards a large door painted like a TARDIS that led to the hallway to the bathrooms. Jester looked between him and Molly for a moment, but ultimately followed Caleb into the hallway, her tail drooping. Molly furrowed his brows, looking after the pair as they walked off and the door finally obstructed his view of them.

“Hey,” a voice below him said. He looked down to see a halfling woman sitting in a chair with the _Counter Strike GO_ main menu on her screen.

“Hi?” he said, his voice turning up at the end of the word in a question. “Sorry if I jostled your chair when I ran into your friend.”

“No problem!” the halfing said brightly. She followed his eyeline to the screen and looked back to him, asking, “Do you play?”

“Eh?” Molly said noncommittally. “I used to. I had some friends that were super into it, but ultimately it wasn’t for me, and the friends were shitty anyway, so...”

“Fair enough,” the halfing said. “I’m Veth.”

“I’m Molly... But you probably heard that earlier,” Molly said. Veth laughed.

“It’s ok. VR can be disorienting. You like rhythm games?” She asked. Molly thanked the Moonweaver that this halfling was better at idle chit chat than he was. He could ramble on for ages about something that interested him, but small talk was torture.

“Oh, yeah!” He said. “I like music a lot, and ADHD never really lets me focus on the story driven games for very long.”

“I see, I see,” Veth said, her hand coming up to rub at her chin. “I’m a god at _Osu._ ”

“Oh my gods, really?” Molly asked. He loved _Osu_ and _Project Diva_ almost as much as _Beat Saber_ and _DDR._

“Yeah, I played a bunch when my kid wouldn’t stop crying when he was first born,” she said. Molly nodded. He opened his mouth to continue the conversation when Caleb walked back up, a somber Jester in tow.

“Ah, _Nottchen_ ,” Caleb said. “I am sorry, but I need to be getting home. We have to be at work early tomorrow.”

“What?” She said. “No, we don’t. Yussa said-”

“It was, ah, nice to m-meet you, Mollymauk,” Caleb said, interrupting Veth. He grabbed her hand and strode off, dragging the halfling behind him. Molly looked after the human and halfling making the sudden exit in confusion. He turned back to Jester who looked positively dejected.

“What’s the matter, Jessie?” He asked, kindly. She opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted when Fjord’s accent rang out across the bar.

“Ok, folks, we’re about ready to start the awards for the cosplay contest, so if you’re entered, please gather around the DJ booth,” the half-orc said across the bar’s sound system. Molly nodded towards the DJ booth and gave Jester a little push. She smiled at him and sprinted over to join the other contestants, her tail lashing behind her, almost hitting several people on the way.

The entirety of the announcements for the cosplay competition passed by without Molly even realizing. All he could think of were Caleb’s piercing blue eyes. Thirty minutes later, when Jester bounced up to him holding a silver medal and a gift certificate, Molly finally snapped out of it.

“I got second, Molly!!!!” Jester crowed, bouncing around him with enough energy for both of them.

“That’s awesome, Jes!” he said. She grinned back and turned to wave at Fjord. With the way the half-orc blushed, Molly was sure she must have thrown him a wink or blown him a kiss. After Fjord walked back behind the bar to continue serving drinks, Jester suggested that she and Molly get a table and some food. The food arrived in short order, Jester babbling about anything and everything while Molly poked at his mac ‘n’ cheese noncommittally.

“Molly, what’s the matter?” Jester asked, leaning over the table to put her arm on his shoulder.

“Nothing, Jes,” he said, feeling his tail fall limp in disappointment against the ground. “Just, we were talking about Caleb earlier today, and - Moonweaver, I sound so stupid - it’s just that you mentioned him and then he showed up here, it seems like fate. But he ran away so quickly. I think I scared him off.”

“I’m sorry, Molly,” Jester said. He opened his mouth to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, but she continued talking, “I was trying to set you two up, because he totally thinks that you’re cute, and you totally think that he’s cute and you would look so cute together, and you would get along really well and-”

“Jester,” Molly interrupted. “Back up. He thinks I’m cute?? He looked like he couldn’t stand the sight of me. It was loud so I couldn’t hear very well, but I thought he said that he thought I was attractive... maybe you’re right.”

“Oh, that’s just Caleb!” Jester said brightly, sitting back down in her chair. “He always looks constipated when he’s nervous and hot people make him nervous, you know? Except for me cause we’ve known each other for soooo long, you know, and also I don’t really think I’m his type. He’s only had one girlfriend and she and I are very different, but you!!! Molly you are TOTALLY his type!!!”

“I am?” Molly asked. “He’s into people who present masc?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jester scoffed. “He’s had more boyfriends than girlfriends. He’s dated like, three twinks or something and you’re totally a twink.”

“Excuse me, I like to think I’m a twunk,” Molly said indignantly, placing his hand over his heart in mock offense.

“No, Molly,” Jester said, her eyes crinkling in a smile, “Fjord is a twunk, you’re just a twink.”

“Ok, fine,” he laughed. “I concede. So, what should I do about Caleb?”

Jester opened her phone and flipped through a few apps and then turned it to face Molly, saying, “You’re mutuals on insta! Just message him, it’s totally not that weird.”

“But,” Molly started, anxiety suddenly gripping his insides in a vice. “What if he blocked me after tonight?”

“Mollymauk Tealeaf, your phone is in your hand right now, and you’ve been sulking _all night._ Message the human.”

Sensibility and nerves warred, and Molly’s finger hovered with uncertainty over the screen a half second more before he finally made a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much for your lovely comments! I told you they'd meet soon 
> 
> Mint is my [best friend's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhapsodie) player character in the campaign that I DM! I asked if I could slip her in here for my own amusement and she said yes! I commissioned the lovely [skit](https://skitpost.tumblr.com/) for a picture of her for my friend for Christmas, so this is what she looks like.  
> 


	5. Chapter 5

Caleb slammed the door to his apartment and leaned against it, sinking down to sit on the floor. _Göttern Verdammt!_ He thought to himself, his hand clenching around the phone in his pocket. He had been so _stupid._ Why did he run? Mollymauk had told him that he was _cute_. Caleb played the situation over in his head for the thousandth time since leaving _Battle and Brew,_ analyzing everything that he did that could have been the wrong thing to say. Why was he like this?

His phone vibrated in his grip and Caleb pulled it out, expecting to see a text from Veth, but instead saw an Instagram message from Mollymauk. He clicked open the notification hurriedly, almost dropping his phone in the process and read the message six times before setting his phone down, immediately picking it back up, and reading the message another three times.

‹ Mollymauk Tealeaf  
tealeafstarot   
Hey. Sorry for stepping on your foot and then subsequently putting mine in my mouth. You’re really cute and I didn’t realize you lived in Zadash. You wanna get coffee tomorrow?  
  
Message...

Caleb couldn’t believe it. He closed the app and pressed the phone icon on his screen, but thought better of it and switched to the messages app, shooting a text to Veth.

Nottchen   
  
Should I go out with the cute tiefling that stepped on my foot tonight?  
  
idk my baby is screaming  
  
I’m sorry, that sounds difficult.  
  
its fine he does that  
  
listen  
  
i want you to be happy  
  
are you ready to date again  
  
after essek  
  
?  
  
I... I don’t know. Maybe? It has been two years, Veth.  
  
if youre ready to date  
  
you should go for it  
  
a nice boy like you shouldnt be alone  
  
Veth, you are ten years younger than me.  
  
that doesnt mean im not going to mother you  
  
*Sigh.* Ok. I will go on one date with him and progress from there.  
  
good  
  
cay?  
  
Ja?  
  
you *deserve* to be happy  
  
I... I know, Veth. It's hard to remember sometimes, but I know.  
  
good  
  
now im going to make this child go to sleep  
  
and youre going to stay up til three texting a cute tiefling  
  


Caleb sighed and closed the messages app, switching back to Instagram. He typed out a message, deleted the entire thing, retyped the exact same message, deleted that, and repeated the entire process another four times. Finally, he worked up the courage to hit send. Mollymauk replied instantly, making Caleb smile.

‹ Mollymauk Tealeaf  
tealeafstarot   
Hey. Sorry for stepping on your foot and then subsequently putting mine in my mouth. You’re really cute and I didn’t realize you lived in Zadash. You wanna get coffee tomorrow?  
  
TODAY 9:21 PM  
Hallo, Mollymauk. I apologize for my strange behavior earlier. I was flustered. I would very much like to go out with you.  
Oh!  
  
Amazing!  
  
Um  
  
ngl, I was freaking out that you left me on read  
  
Ah, I am sorry for that, too. I had to text a friend to psyche me up to accept.  
Good friend  
  
I'm delightful  
  
  
  
Ja, so it would seem.  
So... What do you do?  
Do we do this now or at coffee?  
Weeeeeeell, I make most of my money off of sponsorships for Instagram posts  
  
Sometimes I sell stuff on depop  
  
I thought about starting an onlyfans lol but it seemed like a lot of work  
  
  
  
Message...

Caleb’s cheeks colored at the thought of what types of pictures Mollymauk would put up on his theoretical OnlyFans account. The Playboy bunny picture specifically sprang to his memory. He couldn’t help but imagine Mollymauk in a skimpier version of the bustier, perhaps only a corset and lace underthings. Caleb shook his head and turned back to his phone.

‹ Mollymauk Tealeaf  
tealeafstarot   
I suppose it would be. I had never thought about it. I am a programmer and I don’t suppose there is an OnlyFans for cats?  
Fnejoskenqowl  
  
CALEB  
  
  
  
What? Is there an OnlyFans for cats?  
No  
  
At least I don't think so  
  
But oh my GODS you are hilarious  
  
I... try?  
You succeed  
  
  
  
Ok I don't want to stop talking cause it feels like we've barely started  
  
But I need my beauty sleep  
  
I seriously doubt that anything could make you more beautiful.  
Aww  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Ok going to sleep for real now  
  
Message...

Caleb pressed his hands to his burning cheeks. Flirting was _exhausting._ Was this counted as flirting? Mollymauk seemed to be responding well to the messages that Caleb was sending. He looked back at his phone and realized that neither of them had remembered to set a location. Just as he was about to send another message, Mollymauk beat him to it.

‹ Mollymauk Tealeaf  
tealeafstarot   
Oh shit wait  
  
Coffee  
  
12 pm blooming grove?  
  
I'm friends with the owner  
  
He'll let us have a good table  
  
  
  
  
  
Sounds good to me. Have a good rest, Mollymauk.  
Please  
  
Darling  
  
Call me Molly  
  
  
  
Ja. Molly.   
  
  
Message...

Caleb closed instagram to the tune of his heart hammering like it was going to beat out of his chest. He then realized that he was still sitting against the front door to his apartment. He stood and brushed his slacks off, walking into his kitchen in search of food. He had dragged Veth out of _Battle and Brew_ before either of them had a chance to eat and he was starving.

Setting his InstantPot to pressure cook, Caleb added the appropriate amount of rice and water and sealed the lid, pressing start on the small appliance. While the rice was cooking, he pulled a piece of salmon out of his fridge, heating butter in a pan to spitting before setting the salmon gently inside. The fish cooked quickly, the butter and fat reducing into a fond that Caleb poured white wine into, creating a simple pan sauce after removing the salmon. He plated his food and walked to his dining table, looking at all of the books stacked on the table before deciding that the couch would serve just as well.

Flipping on his Roku, Caleb navigated to Youtube and selected his favorite cooking channel. He turned on a video about how to make better butter noodles and ate his dinner in silence, occasionally batting Frumpkin away from the plate. On the third occurrence of a small bengal paw coming into his field of view, Caleb relented, breaking off a piece of the salmon and feeding it to his cat. Frumpkin purred happily and jumped down, curling up on top of Caleb’s feet.

“If only everyone else was as easy to please as you are, _Katze_ ,” Caleb said, turning his attention back to the video. He’d been using Youtube to learn to cook for the past few months after Veth told him that she thought he could burn water. He hadn’t burned water, but he had forgotten about a pot of water boiling on the stove while reading and come back to the stove to find it empty several hours later. The video finished and Caleb added Tal’Doreian butter and parmesan cheese to his grocery list, making a mental note to try making his own pasta some time.

That night, Caleb dreamed about Mollymauk Tealeaf again, but this time, the dreams were much more concrete. The two of them were walking in a field of sunflowers, the light hitting Molly just right to make his tattoos seem to come alive. Molly smiled at him and laughed, grabbing Caleb’s hand with both hands and pulling them both deeper into the sunflowers.

Frumpkin watched his human sleep, a smile spreading across his face. The little cat tilted his head, looking quizzically at Caleb before hopping down from the headboard and curling up on Caleb’s chest. Human and feline slept peacefully, the former looking forward to what the next day would bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I smell a FIRST DATE NEXT CHAPTER????


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Steelneena for helping and beta'ing! I'd be lost without her!

Yasha was sitting on the couch, her long hair up in a messy bun, when Molly stumbled out of his room that morning. He walked into the kitchen to find coffee in the coffee pot and silently thanked whatever gods would listen that Yasha was an early riser. Grabbing his favorite mug, Molly filled half of it with vanilla creamer before topping it off with coffee. He’d found that if he added the coffee first, the creamer didn’t mix well and he either had to deal with a bitter drink for a few sips or dirty a spoon. Of course, bitter coffee wouldn’t be an issue if he woke up earlier and got to the coffee before it sat on the warmer for several hours.

Sitting next to Yasha, he snuggled into her arm and took a long drag of his coffee. He knew it was cheap, but Molly also knew that he couldn’t have told the difference between expensive coffee and gas station coffee. Yasha was absorbed in a video on her phone, one Airpod nestled into her right ear, so naturally, Molly decided to bother her.

“Yasha?” he asked. She hummed in response, obviously not listening to him. Well, that wouldn’t do at all.

“Yasha!” Molly tried again.

“What is it, Molly?” Yasha said, not taking her eyes off of her phone.

“Well I told Beau that you thought she was super beautiful and that you wanted to have a sleepover, if you know what I mean, and then she said that she felt the same way about you, so you should really call her and not leave the lady waiting, eh, Yash?” Molly rattled off, testing to see if Yasha was actually listening to him. Her lack of response told him all he needed to know. He peeked over her shoulder to look at the video progress bar. The little red line crawled a third of the way across the screen, the other two thirds staying gray. Molly watched it for a moment and thought that he _maybe_ saw it move. _Time for drastic measures._

“Yashaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” he whined, setting his drink on the coffee table and laying across Yasha’s lap. The woman sighed and tapped her phone screen, plucking her Airpod out of her ear and setting both aside.

“Yes, Molly? How can I help you today?” She asked, mock annoyance in her voice.

“Sorry! Hi! You weren’t paying attention to me,” Molly said, smiling up at his best friend. “I have a date today!”

“Oh?” Yasha asked, raising an eyebrow. She had been asleep by the time Molly got home the previous night. “With whom?”

“The cute guy that the girl you like is friends with!!!” Molly rushed out, his hands coming up to his face excitedly, fingers pressing on his cheeks. His tail curled and uncurled around his ankle repetitively.

“Molly, I don’t-” Yasha started. Molly cut her off.

“Save it, you big lesbian,” he snorted. “I was there. You two _clearly_ have chemistry. I will take your gods damned phone and ask her out myself if you don’t do it soon.”

“Ok, FINE, Molly, gods,” Yasha said, exasperated. Molly smiled sweetly, knowing that he’d finally gotten his way. Yasha would be happier for it, he was sure.

“Good,” he said, self satisfaction thick in his voice.

“Are you happy, now?” Yasha sighed. Molly nodded.

“Yes.”

“Fine,” she said, poking at Molly’s ribs to get him to move. He slid sideways off of her, into the space between the couch and the coffee table. Yasha poked him again with her toe before getting up and grabbing her own mug to refill it. She continued, “Tell me about this guy.”

“Well,” Molly started, picking himself up off the floor and sitting backwards on the couch, draping his legs over the back. Yasha faked a groan and sat back down next to Molly. When he started stories this way they were bound to get long and they both knew that. “His name is Caleb. And he’s really awkward. But he’s SO cute and he has these gorgeous blue eyes and red hair and it looks so soft and he looks so, like, subtly strong like maybe he doesn’t work out but maybe he runs idk. But, Yasha! He’s so _pretty_ and he called _me_ beautiful!”

“You are beautiful, Molly,” Yasha said softly, looking down at him.

“Yeah, you know that, and I know that, but hearing it from him was... was...” Molly sighed, closing his eyes.

“When’s the date?” Yasha asked.

“Hmm?”

“When’s the date?”

“Oh!” Molly said, “Noon.”

“Molly?”

“Yeah, Yash?”

“It’s 11:30.”

“FUCK!!!”

***

Somehow, Molly found himself at the Blooming Grove Cafe several minutes early. He wore a mesh top, short-sleeved and black, unbuttoned and tied just above his waist with accompanying joggers. The joggers were split down the middle, one half white with black occult designs printed on them, the other black with white designs. The outfit was fairly monochromatic for him, but when faced with the monumental task of getting dressed and to his car in under ten minutes, Molly stuck with simple. Well, simple for him. He debated with himself on if he should go into the shop or stay outside to wait for Caleb. While he was ruminating, his tail twitching nervously, Molly looked up to see Caleb walk around the corner. He leaned against the wall, trying to look nonchalant, fiddling his keys in his hand.

“ _Hallo_ , Molly,” Caleb said, walking up to Molly and shoving his hands in his pockets. Caleb wore a tan leather jacket over a beige t-shirt, dark brown jeans, and matching leather boots. The whole thing was tied together by a thin blue scarf looped around his neck a few times. When Molly was finally capable of thought, Molly decided he looked _amazing._

“Hi, darling!” Molly said, the pet name falling easily from his lips. He worried for a moment that it might be too familiar, but he relaxed when Caleb smiled warmly at him. They stood there, smiling at each other for a moment, before Molly started, opening the door and gesturing for Caleb to enter. The human did so and Molly followed him in.

 _The Blooming Grove Café_ was a large, stand alone building, halfway between the Pentamarket and the Trispire. Inside, it was all exposed brick, natural wood, and wrought iron pipes, apart from the statement wall. The owner, Caduceus Clay, had built the establishment to sell his custom blends of tea, coffee, and most recently, milkshakes. Initially, the firbolg hadn’t had much of a social media presence, but he had befriended Molly when Caduceus had helped Molly and Yasha to revive a few wilting houseplants after having attended one of Yasha’s hiking trips. Ever since meeting Caduceus, Yasha had come into her own with caring for plants, able to revive even the most seemingly dead little sprout.

Molly had suggested that since the teas and coffees that Caduceus and his family made were what people nowadays called “aesthetic,” Caduceus should really make a social media account for the store. Molly helped Caduceus figure out the search engine optimization and the firbolg was off to the races, gaining thousands of followers in a matter of weeks. Since then, Caduceus had taken to running an aesthetic instagram like a fish to water, changing the wall in the back of the store to a different theme every month. This month, the theme was “balloons.” The statement wall had an intricately painted mural of an elf in a hot air balloon reaching out to touch a golden dragon. The wall was surrounded by archways of balloons arranged into artful, flower-like bouquets. Caduceus’ little sister, Clarabelle, was the mastermind behind the different themes of the wall, helping to design some of the more intricate deserts as well.

“Molly,” Caleb said, looking around the store, a little dazed. “I have never been to a place like this before. You will have to tell me what is good here.”

“Do you like coffee or tea?” Molly asked. Caleb thought for a moment.

“Both.”

“That’s good. Clay makes an amazing cup of tea, there’s a white peach hibiscus that he calls ‘Memory of the past’ or something like that,” Molly said.

“Actually, I changed the name, Molly,” Caduceus said as they approached the counter. The firbolg stood an impressive seven and a half feet tall, his half shaved head of pink hair cascading down his shoulder. “It’s called ‘Dead People Tea’ now.”

“Did Jester suggest that?” Molly laughed. Caduceus nodded, joining Molly’s laughter. When they both stopped laughing, Molly looked over to Caleb, beckoning the human forward. “Caddy, this is Caleb. My, uh, friend. He’s never been here before.”

“Well, hello there, Mister Caleb,” Caduceus said warmly. “Mister Molly here is one of my favorite customers.”

“Hmm. Instead of tea today, I think I’m in the mood for a milkshake, Caddy,” Molly said. He turned back to Caleb and pointed at a picture of an extravagant treat on the counter. The milkshake in the picture was semi-contained inside a mason jar that was stamped with the Blooming Grove’s logo. Around the rim of the jar, there was melted white chocolate and sprinkles. The ice cream inside of the jar was pink and white marble, spilling over the top as well. On top of the ice cream, crowning the entire thing, was a swirl of pink and blue icing and a strip of Fruit Roll-Up that was wrapped around a white chocolate dipped ice cream cone. There were candy eyes pressed into the icing, completing the illusion of a unicorn milkshake.

“Have you seen milkshakes like this on Insta?” Molly continued. “They’re crazy. I’m hungry and these things are basically like a whole meal.”

“ _Scheiße_ ,” Caleb swore softly, looking from the unicorn milkshake to the chalkboard mounted on the wall. “This is called ‘Spirit Guardians,’ _ja?_ Who’s spirit guardian looks like a unicorn from the feywild?”

“Jester,” Molly and Caduceus said in unison, looking at each other knowingly.

“Oh, _ja_ , I guess you are right,” Caleb said.

“You know Miss Jester?” Caduceus asked. Caleb nodded.

“Yes, she is good friends with my old roommate,” Caleb said. He looked over the menu again, tapping his fingers against his stomach lightly. “Molly, I think I will follow your lead. I also have not eaten today.”

“Alright,” Caduceus said, fingers poised over an iPad to take their order. “What would you like, Mister Caleb?”

“I will have what Molly has,” Caleb said. Molly grimaced.

“Darling, my tastes are, uh, kind of... eccentric,” he said.

“How do you mean?” Caleb asked.

“Caddy makes an amazing peanut butter and chilli powder shake. There’s a nutella donut on top from _Sublime_ , down the street, too,” Molly said. “That’s my favorite thing to get.”

“Hmm,” Caleb thought for a moment and Molly flinched, waiting for Caleb to tell him that his preferred order sounded disgusting. Caleb continued: “Sounds interesting, but not unlike southeastern Marquesian food. I will try it.”

“You-” Molly started, looking at Caleb in awe. Not even Yasha would try his more adventurous “stonerific” ice cream combinations, as she called them. “I know it sounds gross, but honestly, it’s really good!”

“I believe you,” Caleb laughed. Caduceus tapped the iPad a few times and looked up at the other two men.

“Um, will that be together or separate?” he asked. Molly’s mind blanked.

“Together,” Caleb said, unlocking his phone and bringing up Apple Pay. Caduceus swiveled the iPad around on its stand to face Caleb. Caleb tapped his phone to the screen, hit the thirty percent tip button, and swiveled the screen back to the firbolg.

“Thank you very much, Mister Caleb,” Caduceus said, looking at the tip amount.

“Yeah...” Molly said, “Thank you, Caleb. I could have paid for my own.”

“ _Ja,_ but we are on a date, no?” Caleb said, smiling at him. “I wanted to pay for yours.”

Molly blushed, putting out a hand to point at the table next to the statement wall. Caleb followed his direction, walking over and sitting down. Pulling a book out of his coat pocket, he set it down on the table edge nearest the wall. Briefly eyeing the book, Molly sat across from him, crossing his legs and folding his hands on top of the table and his tail in his lap.

“So, what brought you to Zadash, Molly?” Caleb asked, looking around the restaurant. “Jester said that you moved here recently.”

“Yeah...” Molly said, trying not to show his unease on his face. He didn’t really want to drop all of his baggage on Caleb on their first date. “Um, you know, when the influencer thing took off I figured it was the perfect opportunity to reinvent myself. I had some friends back home that weren’t the best people. Yasha was moving out here when her instagram took off too, so I figured why not? I moved in with her and the rest is history! How about you? Have you lived here forever?”

“Ah, nein, I am from Rexxentrum,” Caleb said. Both men nodded as Caduceus set their milkshakes down in front of them. Molly plucked the donut off the top of his and took a large bite, smiling as the taste of Nutella spread through his mouth. Caleb continued, “Well, more accurately, the suburbs of Rexxentrum. It’s a small town called Blumenthal.”

“I’ve heard of it!” Molly said. Caleb stuck the thick straw into his milkshake and took a large drink, coughing a little bit as the chilli powder hit the back of his throat. Molly looked concerned, but Caleb held up a hand.

“Ugh, do not worry about me, I was simply surprised,” Caleb said, clearing his throat. “This is quite good, Molly. Thank you for suggesting it!”

“Thank you for trying my strange food combos,” Molly laughed. “Just wait until our fourth date when I bring out the barbecue sauce, olive, and pineapple pizza.”

“Oh, already planning our fourth date, eh?” Caleb teased. Molly blushed again.

“Well, I have to show my hand early,” Molly said, “you might have gotten up and walked out on me when you found out I liked pineapple on pizza.”

“Nein, I think that makes you more desirable,” Caleb said. “I think I would have gotten up and left if someone said they _didn’t_ like pineapple on pizza.”

“A man after my own heart,” Molly sighed. “But, back to Blumenthal. I’m originally from Duskbrook. They’re close, aren’t they?”

“Duskbrook?” Caleb asked.

“Ah, Shadycreek Run,” Molly said, his brow creasing a bit. “They’ve been trying to rename it Duskbrook for a while. After they finally dealt with the crime wave that went through the city, they tried to rebrand.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” Caleb said. “I will be honest, I have not heard the best things about the town.”

“Yeah,” Molly agreed. “I don’t like to, uh, advertise that I’m from there.”

“I understand,” Caleb said. “I don’t tend to speak of my life in Blumenthal much either.”

The two men lapsed into a companionable silence, both drinking their milkshakes and occasionally smiling at one another. Molly sat back, pushing his mason jar away from himself and looked over the restaurant. There were a few other patrons, but most notably were two girls who were sneaking glances in Molly’s direction and whispering. He stared at them in confusion, eyes widening when they quickly got up and walked over.

“Hi, I’m so sorry,” one of the girls said. “Are you Mollymauk Tealeaf?”

“I - Yeah, I am,” Molly said, throwing a glance at Caleb that he hoped said “I’m so sorry.” Caleb smiled.

“It is fine, Mollymauk,” Caleb said, turning to the two girls. “It seems that these _Frauen_ would like to take a selfie with you? It is fine.”

“Uh, thanks, Caleb,” Molly said, standing a little warily. The girls squealed and ran over to stand under the balloon archway by the statement wall. Molly joined them, posing for a few selfies and wishing the girls a good day. As they were snapping pictures, Molly looked over to where Caleb sat watching him. The look on Caleb’s face when he thought that Molly couldn’t see him was downright _fond._ Caleb had his chin rested on the heel of his hand and he gazed Molly languidly, his eyes hooded and a small smile on his lips. Molly felt himself blush, looking at the, unless he was mistaken, smitten look on Caleb’s face.

When Caleb caught Molly’s eye, he straightened, his smile widening a fraction. Molly winked at Caleb, making a kissing face at him before turning back to the task of taking selfies with his followers. Out of the corner of his eye, Molly thought he saw Caleb blush. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised a first date, didn't I? Thank you so much for everyone's comments on every chapter, you all are so wonderful. <3


	7. Chapter 7

Molly was floating. There was space all around him and little bits of debris floated past intermittently. He turned, following one of the pieces of refuse with his eyes. The small stone, a brilliant amber color, floated past him, colliding in front of him with another small stone of pitch black. When the two rocks collided, the amber stone seemed to burn brighter, shattering the black stone. Molly flinched as the amber changed trajectory, rocketing towards his forehead, but the impact never came. When he opened his eyes, he looked up, the amber stone sitting just in front of his forehead. It slowly began to orbit his head, drifting lazily along. With the stone this close, Molly could see a new color seeping into the stone, but he couldn’t tell which. Light pink? The color mingled with the amber, distorting both colors. Just as Molly thought that he’d be able to identify the color, a noise sounded in his ear, and suddenly his vision danced with tiny lollipops.

“ _♩ Suckin’ too hard on your lollipop, oh, love’s gonna get you down! ♩_ ” Molly’s phone rang out, jolting him awake. He groaned, reaching across his bed for his phone, smacking his hand on the bedside table until he felt the case.

“What do you want, Jester,” he groaned after swiping at the green icon for a moment.

“Molly!!!! Hi!!!” Jester’s voice came over the tiny speaker. “Are you awake??”

“No, I’m actually dead, speaking to you from beyond the grave through my smartphone,” Molly grumbled. “Yes I’m awake and you woke me up, what do you want?”

“Molly it’s two pm, why are you still asleep?” Jester asked.

“Mmmm, I stayed up til two am talking to Caleb,” Molly said, flopping back onto his pillow.

“Oh. My. Gosh!” Jester crowed. “That is so cute!! Are you guys like boyfriends now?”

“Jes, we’ve been on one date,” Molly groaned. “I hardly think either of us is ready to say that we’re together.”

“But do you want to be?” Jester pressed. Molly blushed to himself. Of course he wanted to be Caleb’s partner. The man was stunning and kind and smart as a whip.

“I mean...” Molly started, trailing off. He heard Jester cackle on the other end of the phone.

“I am totally mentioning this in my speech at your wedding,” Jester said excitedly. “Can I be your Maid of Honor?”

“Jester, why did you call me?” Molly asked, putting the visual of himself standing next to Caleb under an archway of flowers aside.

“Molly! We should totally get all of our friends together and play trivia tonight!” Jester said. Hmm, now _there_ was an idea.

“Oh, that sounds SO fun,” Molly said, sitting up in bed. He pulled the charger out of his phone and glanced over to the mirror on the wall. His hair was going everywhere.

“I’ll make the group chat, you invite who you want, okay?” Jester asked. “But you have to invite Caleb!!! I’m going to invite Fjord.”

“Okay so me, you, Caleb, Fjord, who else?” Molly asked, fully awake and in planning mode now. “Yasha and... fuck what is her _name?_ ”

“Beau? Caleb’s old roommate?” Jester asked. “Yes, _excellent_ idea! We need to get those two to hook up.”

“Sounds like a plan, matchmaker extraordinaire!” Molly said. “I’m gonna invite Caduceus, too.”

“Okay, Molly!” Jester said. Molly could hear whatever she was sitting on bouncing up and down with her. “Byeeeee!”

“Bye, Jes,” he said, pulling the phone away from his ear and clicking the end call button.

‹ littlesapphirecos, sco...  
Jester Lavorre is active now   
HEY GUYS!!!!!!!!  
  
Oh, gods, what have I been added to?  
  
Hellooooooooooooo!!!!!   
Hi there :)   
  
Jester and I had a GREAT idea!!!!  
oh no  
  
oh no  
  
what is this  
  
LETS GO PLAY TRIVIA 2NITE!!!!!  
  
With Caleb and Beau with us we're SURE to win they're so smart   
And yasha has nature locked DOWN  
I have random trivia that no one else will know  
Jester has pop culture  
Fjord has drinks and music  
Caddy has really esoteric stuff  
We’ve got EVERYTHING covered!!!!  
May I bring Veth along?  
  
sure caleb!!!  
  
**frumpkinsdad** added **vbrenatto1**  
what the fuck  
  
caleb what  
  
Please play trivia with us, Veth. I believe that Yeza would enjoy himself as well.  
  
ok  
  
when  
  
2nite!!!!!!  
  
how tf do you expect me to get a sitter that quick  
  
also hi im veth  
  
I can probably get my sister to do it  
  
who are you  
  
Caduceus Clay :)   
  
I run a milkshake store  
  
But my sister is great with kids  
  
you trust these people caleb?  
  
I uh... I trust Molly. And Molly trusts the Clays. So I trust the Clays.  
  
caleb has talked about u alot veth!!!!!!  
  
wtf caleb  
  
Ah, I have only spoken about how wunderbar you are, Nottchen.  
  
oh hey veth  
  
oh hey beau  
  
Wait so is your name veth or... nottchen?  
  
Nottchen is a nickname I gave Veth a long time ago, she prefers Veth.  
  
only caleb gets to call me that  
  
10/4  
  
ok  
  
were good  
  
i texted cads sister  
  
she will watch the boy  
  
u call ur son the boy?????  
  
yeah you ever had kids?  
  
Point taken  
  
Look, youre lucky i dont have work tomorrow  
  
And youre lucky i like you people cause i don't want to eat that food outside of work  
  
  
  
  
Message...

By the time that Molly got to _Battle and Brew_ , he was practically vibrating out of the passenger seat of Yasha’s car. They had decided to carpool, as it didn’t make sense for them to drive separately. As soon as they got inside and Molly had said hello to Mint, Yasha said that she needed to use the restroom. Molly wandered around until he found where Jester was sitting, deeply engrossed in something on her phone screen.

“Hey, you,” He said, flopping into a chair across the table from her. Molly wore an aged _Styx_ t-shirt that he had cut the sleeves off of and tied in the middle. Accompanying the shirt, he wore a pair of multicolored and patterned harem pants that were cinched about the waist with a leather belt and silver buckles. Chunky gold jewelry and ankle boots completed the look, Molly’s signature golden sun and silver moon charms dangling from his horn caps.

“Hi, Molly!” Jester said as soon as she looked up from her phone. She wore a pair of lemon printed overalls over a white crop top. Yellow was a good color on Jester. She continued: “You look amazing, as always!”

“Thank you, darling,” Molly said, striking a pose in his chair and fanning himself with the spade of his tail. “This was an amazing idea, Jes.”

“Right?” Jester nearly shouted, bouncing up and down in her chair, rocking the table dangerously. “Oh my gods, Molly. I love quadruple dates. I’m so glad that Yeza could come!”

“Well,” Molly said, waiving at Yasha across the restaurant as she emerged from the bathroom. “It’s not a date for Yasha and Beau... yet.”

“It will be by the end of the niiiiight!” Jester sang. Molly grinned as she continued, “We need to find someone for Caduceus because the rest of us are paired up!”

“Mm, actually,” Molly started, thanking the waitress for the glasses of water that she had brought over. “Caduceus is aroace, Jes. He’s perfectly happy to just be friends.”

“Oh, thank you for telling me!” Jester said. “You know how I get.”

“Yeah, I _do,_ you menace,” Molly said, fake glaring at Jester as Yasha joined them.

“Hi, Yasha!” Jester said as the dark haired woman joined them.

“Hi, Jester,” Yasha said, smiling at the shorter woman.

The next people to arrive were Caleb, Veth, and Veth’s husband Yeza. Yeza was a halfling, like Veth, his thick hair and eyebrows almost obscuring his eyes. Introductions occurred as the rest of the group joined them one by one, Beau coming last. Molly and Jester had conspired to make sure that no one sat between Yasha and Molly, forcing Beau to take the remaining chair. She sat down, glancing up at Yasha before glaring across the table at Jester. Jester just smiled, looking around at all of their friends.

As the game started and the first round of questions was read out, Molly looked over to where Caleb sat on his other side. The human wore beige cuffed jeans, a teal long sleeved t-shirt, his blue scarf from the other day, fingerless gloves, loafers, and a slightly longer brown leather jacket. Molly noticed that he also had a small book tucked into one of the pockets on his jeans. Did this man ever go anywhere without a book?

The evening progressed and the group had answered most of the questions correctly, Beau, Caleb, and, surprisingly to himself, Molly doing most of the answering. Molly had secured them a complete answer on the halftime question by being able to rattle off four _Vocaloids_ that were not copyrighted by _Crypton Future Media._ Everyone had clapped when he screwed his eyes shut and counted off all four of the ones that he had written on his fingers as the announcer read out a list of names. The trivia crew took a break after halftime, allowing the nine friends around the table some time to chat amongst themselves.

Molly had been stealing glances at Caleb the entire night, wanting to scoot his chair closer to the human’s. He’d been trying to restrain himself from being as cuddly and touchy as he normally was, not knowing what, if any, public affection Caleb was comfortable with. He looked over to Yasha two chairs over and saw her glance over to Beau before quickly readjusting her eyes. The two women had been exchanging heated looks all night, the tension between them rising. Deciding to redirect his energy into getting Yasha and Beau to admit that they were interested in each other, Molly scooted his chair away from Caleb and closer to Beau. Caleb looked at him questioningly, but his face softened when Molly nodded his head at Beau slightly and winked. Caleb winked back and Molly’s heart skipped a beat.

“What are you doing, man?” Beau asked, scooting her chair away from Molly’s, inadvertently colliding with Yasha. Before Molly had a chance to answer, Beau was no longer concerned with him. She and Yasha had met eyes, Yasha’s hand on her shoulder. The spell between them was broken by the announcer starting the next round of trivia, but Molly made sure to pay attention to his two friends as he and Caleb lead the charge into the fourth round. Beau and Yasha were quiet, both trying to hide their phones under the table. Molly scooted his chair back to its original position. Caleb looked at him and smiled, reaching over and linking their hands under the table. Molly felt himself blush, twining his fingers with Caleb’s and nudging the paper that the trivia answers were written on over to Jester. She smiled at him and winked, taking the paper and turning to Fjord and Caduceus to answer the next question.

Right before the final question, Beau suddenly stood, mumbling an excuse about an upset stomach. A moment later, Yasha said that she was going to check on her and got up, jogging after Beau towards the restroom. Molly looked at Jester and rolled his eyes.

“Really appreciate them leaving right before the final question,” Fjord grumbled. Jester put a hand on his shoulder.

“Come on, Fjord, we can totally win without them!” Jester said happily. “Besides, Beau deserves some _hur hur hur,_ it’s been a while since she’s had a girlfriend.”

“Jester, I don’t think-” Fjord started, but Molly cut him off.

“Yeah, uh, no, that’s exactly what’s happening,” he said, turning his phone screen to show Fjord the text message that he’d gotten from Yasha that was just the suggestive half smile emoji. Jester shrieked excitedly and immediately whipped out her own phone, presumably to start texting Beau. Molly laughed, but reached across the table to push her phone down, saying: “Careful, if you’re caught they’ll disqualify us.”

“Oh, right!” Jester said, shoving her phone back in her pocket and wiggling excitedly.

“And, for our final question, the category is Movie Weapons,” the announcer’s voice rang out over the loudspeaker. The remaining people at the table leaned towards the speaker fractionally waiting for the question. “What is the technical name for Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber?”

“Graflex!” The word came out of both Molly and Caleb’s mouths instantly. They looked at each other and smiled.

“Well, if we both said it, we must be right,” Caleb said, blushing a little. “We should bet fifteen points.”

“Pfft,” Molly scoffed, “You could have said ‘Tharizdun’s Asshole’ and I would have believed you. You’ve gotten 95% of the questions you’ve had an answer correct.”

“G-R-A-F-L-E-X?” Jester asked, spelling out the word. Molly and Caleb nodded in unison, their hands still joined under the table. Jester tore the slip of paper off of the pad and skipped away to turn in the answer. Molly watched her go, looking past her to see Yasha slip out of the restroom, her mouth visibly redder. He winked at her, nodding towards the door. She winked back and left the restaurant, Beau following five minutes later, her hair falling out of it’s topknot.

“Hey, look at the love birds,” Molly squeezed Caleb's hand and pointed towards Beau leaving the restaurant. Caleb looked up, catching the tail end of Beau’s flannel that was wrapped around her waist as she slipped out the door.

“Did you not ride with Yasha?” Caleb asked. Molly nodded.

“Yeah, I did,” he said. “Oh shit, that means I need a ride.”

“I can drive you,” Caleb said immediately. Molly smiled at him and brought his free hand around to lay on Caleb's cheek.

“Thank you, darling, but you have to drive the Brennattos home,” Molly said.

“Yeah!” Veth crowed. “What am I? Chopped liver?”

“Nein, _schatz_ , I did not-” Caleb started, stammering.

“Veth, don’t be rude,” Yeza said, putting his arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulling her in to kiss her temple. She hissed at him, trying unsuccessfully to squirm away from his touch, but resigning herself to being kissed a few times with a smile eventually.

“Jes, can you drive me home?” Molly asked.

“Of course, Molly!” Jester replied. Molly looked at Caleb out of the corner of his eye. The man looked a little disappointed, but the flush that spread across his cheeks betrayed his embarrassment as well.

Just then, the announcer called out the answer to the question, confirming that Molly and Caleb had been correct. The table cheered, Jester scooching forward on the edge of her seat to wait for the final point announcement. 

“In third place we have ‘The Darrington Brigade!’ In second place we have ‘Vox Machina!’ and in first place... drumroll please...” The announcer said, waiting as everyone in the bar drummed on their tables. “In first place is ‘The Mighty Nein!’”

The table erupted, Veth jumping up onto her chair and Jester knocking hers over. Caleb caught the chair deftly with his free hand, stopping Jester from falling completely. Molly sucked in a breath, impressed at the human’s quick reaction time.

“Oh, thanks, Caleb,” Jester said, wiggling in her chair to make sure it was stable. When she had determined that it was, she turned to Molly, “Molly, you should go get the gift certificate. You play Beat Saber here all the time!”

“Oh, Jes, I-” Molly started. Caleb shook his head.

“ _Nein, sch-_ Molly. Jester is right,” Caleb said. What had he stopped himself from saying? “You are here more than everyone except Fjord, but he works here.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to eat the food here more than I have to,” Fjord agreed.

“Okay, okay, fine,” Molly agreed, dropping Caleb’s hand reluctantly and walking up to the DJ booth. As he was handed the gift certificate, he heard two men arguing behind him.

“Tary? What are you doing here?” A Tal’Doreian accented voice said. “I thought you said you couldn’t come to trivia tonight.”

Molly turned around to watch a blond human in a _Gucci_ romper try to sneak past a pretty dark haired half-elf. The human winced and turned to the half-elf, saying, “Vax! Hiiiiii. Yeah, I did, but then those plans dried up. And some other friends wanted to come.”

“ _Matron_ ,” the half-elf swore, “You always do this, Tary.”

As their argument heated up, Molly scooted his way past the two men. Best not to get involved, he figured. Back at his table, Molly flopped down in his seat with the certificate. Unfortunately, Caleb’s hand was not hanging by his side anymore, but he was leaning on the table talking to Veth.

“Where are the checks?” Molly asked.

“Oh, Caleb got your food!” Jester said, happily. “The waitress came by while you were getting the prize money, so Caleb grabbed yours, Beau’s, and Yasha’s!”

“I can get Beauregard to pay me back very easily,” Caleb agreed. Molly let out a defeated sigh.

“Okay, fine, Moneybags,” he said, sticking a mock-firm finger in Caleb’s direction. “But next date, I’m paying.”

“We’ll see,” Caleb said, his mouth cocked into a half smile.

The group got their checks back, Molly grumbling the whole time. As they were leaving the restaurant, Molly grabbed Caleb’s hand, holding him back from the others.

“Hey,” he said shyly.

“Hey, yourself,” Caleb said, smiling.

“Please let me pay for myself or both of us next time,” Molly said, his hand flying up to fiddle with his horn jewelry nervously. “I don’t want you thinking that I can’t pay ‘cause I don’t have a ‘real job’ or whatever, and-”

“ _Nein, nein, bitte,_ Molly!” Caleb said, shaking his head vehemently. “I do not think that you cannot pay for your own meals, I just enjoy spoiling you.”

“I- Thank you, Caleb,” Molly said, blushing. “I’ll have to keep that in mind when I feel like being a brat.”

Caleb blinked at him and Molly felt his cheeks burn. Had he really just said that? “I’m sorry, that was way too forward, sometimes I just open my mouth and things come out, I have a horrible filter, I-” he started to babble when Caleb grabbed his hand.

“ _Spatzi_ , don’t worry,” Caleb said, ghosting his thumb across Molly’s knuckles. Molly blushed at the pet name, his tail moving to wind around Caleb’s ankle of its own accord. “You are very cute, so I will let you get away with it.”

“I... Thank you,” Molly said for the second time in as many minutes. He looked at Caleb, not knowing what to say next. They stood relatively close to one another, with Caleb still holding Molly’s hand. Molly slowly felt himself leaning forward, drawn to Caleb like the human had his own gravity. Caleb blinked, glancing down to Molly’s lips and up again quickly. The two were inches apart now, both too timid to initiate the kiss that seemed inevitable.

“Molly!” He heard Jester’s voice call from across the parking lot. “Come on! I need to drive you home and I want to watch Drag Race reruns tonight!”

Molly unwound his tail, pulled back, and sighed, turning the sigh into a laugh quickly. “That’s Jester for you,” he said. Caleb laughed with him, the human’s cheeks stained a gorgeous scarlet.

“I had a nice time tonight,” Molly said, squeezing Caleb’s hand before dropping it. “I’m glad that our friends get along.”

“Me, too,” Caleb agreed. “Goodbye, Molly. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye, Caleb...” Molly breathed, watching the redhead walk away. He waved at Caleb as Caleb got into the front seat of his car and drove off. Suddenly, Jester’s hot pink convertible obscured his vision.

“Come on!!” She said impatiently. Molly squinted at her.

“Is your lipstick smudged?” He asked, vaulting into the passenger seat.

“No!” Jester answered a little too quickly. Molly cackled.

“You bitch,” He said good naturedly, “you’re over here getting all of the sugar you want and then when you’re done you go and cockblock me!”

“Oh is _that_ why you took so long?” Jester said, adjusting the mirror to fix her makeup.

“Yeah, we were talking, and both leaning in and then you yelled at me,” Molly complained, poking Jester in the shoulder with his tail.

“You’ll get to kiss him eventually,” she said, turning the mirror back to normal and stepping on the gas. “Aren’t you two going to the High Museum of Art on, like, Grissen?”

“Yeah, but still!” Molly huffed, sulking into his seat.

“Kiss him in front of that new statue, the one that the artists just debuted like last week,” Jester said. “It’s supposed to be like a love letter to their past selves or something really new-agey. At least, that’s what Caduceus said.”

“Anyway!” Molly said. “Thank you for driving me home. You’ll try to get all the juicy details out of Beau while I try to get them out of Yasha, right?”

“Of course!” Jester said, merging onto the highway. Before too long, Molly was safely ensconced in his own apartment, thinking of Caleb and resolutely trying to ignore the muffled noises coming from Yasha’s room.


	8. Chapter 8

Caleb sat on a bench and pulled a small book out of his pocket to continue reading. The book that he had brought with him to pass the time, as he was early, as usual, was one of his favorites from when he was young. He had read _Foundation_ by Issac Asimov and had immediately become invested in computers and robotics, trying to find ways to get them to mesh with his magic from a young age. He looked up from the passage he was reading to see a purple blur skid around the corner.

Molly sprinted up to him, skidding to a stop directly in front of where Caleb sat.

“Hey!” Molly said, babbling at full speed. “Sorry I’m so late, I know you hate it when people are late, traffic was awful and then parking in that deck is a nightmare and then the stupid attendant didn’t believe that I had a ticket and I had to walk-”

“ _Spatzi_ ,” Caleb interrupted gently. Molly’s ears perked up and he looked at Caleb questioning. “It is 10:58. You are not late.”

Molly sighed and slumped down on the bench next to Caleb, letting out a breath and panting. Caleb laughed and moved to stroke Molly’s hair, but pulled his hand back, unsure of himself. They had held hands and almost kissed at this point, but he still wasn’t sure what type of public affection was within Molly’s boundaries.

“I try to get to every date with you fifteen minutes early, cause I know I’m perpetually late,” Molly said, sitting up and crossing one leg over the other. “It’s worked pretty well so far.”

“I... appreciate that, Molly,” Caleb said, running his thumb along the well loved spine of his book. He stood, tucking his book back into a pocket and offering a hand to Molly. Molly took it, standing and grinning at him.

“I’m jealous of your pockets, you know,” He said, linking his arm in Caleb’s. The closeness made Caleb’s heart skip a beat, the human having to force himself to breathe normally.

“Do you not have pockets?” Caleb asked. He looked over what Molly was wearing. The tiefling wore a crop top with the words “Gender is dead and so am I” printed on it that hung off of one shoulder and a pair of cut off and ripped burgundy shorts. In the rips of the shorts, blue moon printed fabric showed through.

“Nah, there’s pockets in these,” Molly said, putting his free hand in a pocket to demonstrate. “But they’re ‘women’s’ shorts, so they have tiny pockets, and I got lucky that they had pockets at all.”

“That seems silly,” Caleb mused, smiling at the dragonborn behind the counter of the museum check in desk.

“It is, and I’ll tell you why in a minute,” Molly said, turning to face the museum employee. “Two tickets, please! Do we have to pay extra for the ‘Reclaimed Love’ exhibit?”

“Nope! Included with all of the tickets,” the dragonborn said. Molly smiled back, flashing his teeth. As Molly chatted away with the employee, Caleb slowly ran his eyes over his date. In addition to the crop top and shorts, Molly was absolutely _covered_ in jewelry. He had his standard sun and moon charms hung on his horns, a few thin gold chains adding to the effect. There were bracelets on one arm, a dangly sun charm in his belly button, various facial piercings that Caleb didn’t know the names of, and he thought he caught a glimpse of a stud in Molly’s tongue. He swallowed, filing that information away for later as Molly finished speaking with the dragonborn and handed him a ticket.

“Anyway, so I was saying about pockets,” Molly said, offering Caleb his arm. Caleb took it and they strolled off towards the first exhibit. Molly explained how women’s pockets were made smaller and smaller in order to sell purses and how women’s fashion as a whole was a giant scam, putting quotes around the word “women” each time he said it.

“Why do you keep putting quotes around ‘women?’” Caleb asked.

“Cause clothes don’t have a gender,” Molly said, shrugging. “Some famous person said something like ‘They’re not women's clothes, they’re my clothes. I bought them.’ in an interview once. I liked that.”

“I suppose it has to do with what someone is comfortable with wearing,” Caleb mused.

“Yep!” Molly said happily. “Also, there’s a distinct lack of fun patterns and colors in ‘men’s’ clothes, so I had to expand my horizons.”

They continued to walk though the museum, Molly occasionally pointing out pieces of art and giving Caleb small tidbits of information on each of the painters. As they came across an exhibit around Alphonse Mucha, Molly stopped and stared at one painting for a long time. Caleb walked a few steps without him, but noticed his date was no longer at his elbow, turning back to see Molly transfixed.

“Do you like this work, _Spatzi_?” Caleb asked gently. Molly nodded.

“I have to stop myself from tearing up each time I see it,” Molly said, still staring at the painting. “It’s called ‘Zodiac.’ It’s one of the reasons why I got so into tarot reading.”

“Oh?” Caleb said, prompting for more information. He could listen to Molly talk about his interests all day and then some.

“Yeah,” Molly said. “It’s a long story, but I think you’ll like it. Yasha really likes speedrunning, so she was testing out a new game early on when I met her. It was a puzzle game, something around a girl detective called Francy, or something.”

“Nancy Drew,” Caleb added. “I have read some of her books, as well as her friends, the Hardy Boys. I grew up with those books.”

“I didn’t realize there were books,” Molly said, still a little dazed. “Anyway, in the game, she had to do this, like, sliding tile puzzle where she had to fix the image. The image on the tile puzzle was this painting. I was watching her try to beat her best time, and I liked the painting so much that I googled it and bought a print. That was the first time that I hung out with Yasha. As I researched more and more about Mucha, who was not a water genasi, he was a tiefling, by the way, I learned more about his influences of advertising and astrology. Saying it outloud just now makes me realize that I have the same influences in my art.”

Caleb stared transfixed as Molly turned to him with tears in his eyes. Molly gently dabbed at one eye with a finger, trying not to smudge his golden eyeliner. One tear escaped his focus, rolling slowly down his cheek. Without even thinking, Caleb reached up and wiped it away with his thumb, leaving his hand on Molly’s cheek. They were impossibly close again, just as they had been the other night. Caleb felt himself drift forward further into Molly’s space, itching to press his lips to the tiefling’s.

“We should probably stop blocking the painting,” Caleb heard himself say. _No! He wanted to kiss Molly, why was he saying this?!_

“Yeah,” Molly breathed, stepping back and sniffing. “Thank you for letting me talk about it.”

“Of course, Molly,” Caleb said, reaching out and taking the tiefling’s hand. He smiled when Molly threaded their fingers together. “You have a lot of knowledge about these things and I want to hear all of it.”

“It’s nice to hear you say that,” Molly said. “I know I can be a lot with the ADHD and the purple skin and the horns and everything, but you didn’t scoff or roll your eyes or _anything_ when I was talking!”

“I know the feeling of talking about a special interest and having someone dismiss you,” Caleb said. “Even if I didn’t, I would never want you to feel that from me, Molly.”

Molly smiled at him and they continued to walk through the museum towards the new exhibit. The poster for the exhibit was an artfully drawn “K and V” with the K made out of leaves and vines and the V made out of two daggers. Caleb thought that it was a little extravagant, but Molly ooh’d and aah’d over the poster itself, so Caleb followed along, happy to watch Molly be interested in something.

As they walked into the room where the art pieces were housed, Caleb found his breath taken away. With what he had thought was kind of a tacky poster, he hadn’t expected much from the art exhibit. What he saw was the centerpiece, suspended in the air. A twelve foot raven in flight with its wings extended stared back at him. The bird was beautiful and pitch black at the head, it’s feathers slowly morphing into maple leaves as they got closer to the tips of the wings. The leaves started green and slowly faded to orange as they reached the ends of the wings.

“Wow,” He breathed. Out of his periphery, Caleb saw Molly nod in agreement.

“Wow, indeed,” Molly said. “Did you know that it’s a cape?”

“ _Was?_ ” Caleb said, turning to look at Molly. “There is no way this could be a piece of clothing. _Ist wunderbar,_ but a garment?”

“Yeah!” Molly said, excitedly, dragging Caleb closer to the art piece. “When it’s suspended like this with the extra leaves flying off, it looks like a bird. But if you take it down, the raven head is actually a place for your head and shoulders.”

Molly pulled out his phone and showed Caleb a picture of a gorgeous red headed half elf wearing the cloak, the fine leather moulding to her shoulders perfectly. To her side was a half elven man with slicked back hair, posing like Will Smith showing off his wife for the photographers. Caleb snorted.

“Those are the artists?” He asked. Molly nodded.

“Yeah, they’re like real big in Tal’Dorei or something, but we’re just now getting to see their art here,” Molly said. “Oh! Another cool thing. The exhibit is called ‘Reclaimed Love,’ yeah?”

“Yes, I believe that is the title,” Caleb agreed.

“Yeah, so everything in the exhibit is recycled, too!” Molly said. “The lady, Keyleth, is like the head of the environmentalist political movement in Tal’Dorei, too. She’s so cool.”

“Sounds like it,” Caleb said. As they started walking towards the next art piece, he continued, “You mentioned your art earlier. Do you just mean the pictures that you take or did you mean something more traditional?”

“More traditional,” Molly said, pointing out a waterfall landscape made out of decommissioned military equipment and money. “I’d love to see it in a museum someday, but I doubt anyone wants to look at it.”

“I would love to see your art, Molly,” Caleb said softly. Molly turned and smiled at him.

“Maybe I’ll show you some day.”

“Let's get lunch in the cafe,” Caleb said. “And you can show me now.”

Molly nodded and they walked off towards the small restaurant on the roof of the museum. The food was fairly standard, though they had a special that day of Marquesian Curry, which Molly immediately said he wanted to try. Despite his instinct to pull out his credit card, Caleb let Molly buy him lunch, picking out a turkey and cheese sandwich for himself. Once they were seated at a table on the balcony overlooking the city, Molly pulled out his phone and put it down on the table to show Caleb some pictures. The phone itself wasn’t cracked, but the screen protector was cracked and even missing bits of the supposedly shatterproof glass in places. The phone looked as if it had been dropped a lot, only the case and the screen protector keeping it safe from cracks. Caleb made a note to get Molly a Pop Socket for an anniversary.

 _Anniversary!?_ He thought to himself. _Scheiße, you have been on three dates with this person and you are already thinking about having anniversaries with them?_

“So, this is some of the tarot deck that I’m working on drawing,” Molly said, sliding his phone towards Caleb and bringing him out of his reverie. “I don’t know how much you know about tarot, but this is the moon card. She represents secrets and illusion, but she can also bring understanding. Letting your intuition guide you and all that.”

“I know some,” Caleb said. “I mostly thought it was _wurst_ until Jester dragged me to get a reading once. Now I still think it’s _wurst_ , but the readers seem to be very smart and are able to interpret a person’s feelings off of a glance. It is interesting from a psychology perspective.”

“That’s kind of why I like it, too,” Molly said, “The reading people aspect. I don’t necessarily think that the gods or the universe talk to people through the cards, but they’re a useful tool to reflect back at us the things we might not necessarily want to acknowledge.”

Caleb almost winced at that, recalling the reading he had gotten after his relationship with Essek ended. He continued to listen as they ate and Molly talked through the various cards that he had painted. Even with his perfect memory, Caleb wondered how Molly kept all of the meanings of the cards _and_ their reverse straight in his head. The one that they were looking at now had a half-orc with teal skin embracing a blue tiefling.

“Is that-” Caleb started.

“Yes, it’s Fjord and Jester,” Molly laughed. “This is my most recent finished one. After Jester told me that they were finally together, I couldn’t resist.”

“These are very good, Molly,” Caleb said softly. Molly looked up at him, his red eyes sparkling.

“You really think so?” he asked. Caleb nodded. Molly continued, “I want things that I sell on my page not to be just my face or the little emojis that Jester drew of me once.”

“Jester drew emojis of you?” Caleb asked, folding his sandwich wrapper up into a neat little triangle.

“Yeah,” Molly confirmed, nodding. “Then my publicist said we should put them on hats and sell them. I don’t know, it makes some money, but not as much as sponsorships. I think my personality is more marketable than my appearance, anyway.”

“Well then clearly people do not appreciate fine art,” Caleb said. He marveled at the line, not used to being what Beau would call “smooth.”

Molly opened his eyes wide and looked at Caleb, saying his name softly, “Caleb...”

“ _Ja,_ Molly?” Caleb asked, swallowing his nerves.

“I...” Molly started, staring just over Caleb’s shoulder for a moment before continuing, “Thank you, darling. You’re no chore to look at yourself, you know.”

Caleb blushed, thinking about how close they were earlier in front of _Zodiac._ They finished their lunch in silence, Molly wrapping his tail around Caleb’s leg and Caleb reaching out and taking Molly’s hand once they were both finished eating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [Steelneena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steelneena) for beta'ing and for help with the Zemnian! And thank you to the WM server for rushing in with suggestions for Molly's tshirt when I realized I had A, missed posting this morning (sorry about that), and B, hadn't made my final edits on the chapter yet. And thank you to Chai for suggesting the one I went with. ❤️
> 
> This is a really personal chapter for me, the story about the Zodiac partially coming from my experience. I love that painting and it's made such an impression on me as an artist. I mean this whole fic is very personal, as they're exploring my city, but this chapter especially. I had a blast writing it ❤️❤️


	9. Chapter 9

Caleb tapped nervously on the steering wheel of his car as he waited for the light to change so that he could turn into the shopping center where he and Veth were meeting the rest of their friends. He hated being late, but Yeza had gotten held up at work and couldn’t get home to watch Luc until well after Caleb would have been comfortable leaving. He assured Veth that he didn’t blame either of them, but being late still made his shoulders itch with anxiety.

They pulled into the parking lot of the shopping center and found a parking spot quickly, which was a stroke of luck on a Friday night. The revolving sushi restaurant that Yasha and Jester had picked for the group’s outing was incredibly popular, wait times exceeding two hours at some points. Veth sprang out of the car, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“I am going to _kill it_ , at karaoke tonight, Caleb!” she said, walking backwards to make eye contact with him. Caleb smiled at her and nodded as they both walked into the restaurant.

“Caleb!!!!!” Jester’s voice rang out across the restaurant. “Veth! We’re over here!”

Caleb looked in the direction of Jester’s voice and saw their entire group of friends sitting at a booth that had two chairs pulled up to the end of the table. There was some commotion from the three people facing away from Caleb and as he and Veth approached the table, Yasha stood and moved to a chair. Upon Yasha not being in the way anymore, Caleb saw Molly trying unsuccessfully to push a resolute Beau out of the bench and onto the floor.

“Bro, what the fuck, he was late?” She asked, looking down at where Molly’s hands were on her leg and on her side.

“Yeah, but your _girlfriend_ moved for me when I asked nicely and you didn’t,” Molly said, giving up and rolling his eyes.

“And I was going to move to sit next to her,” Beau said sarcastically, “but you interrupted me with your unpleasantness.”

“You’re the unpleasant one!” Molly shot back, sticking his tongue out. There was no malice in his voice, only good natured ribbing.

Once Beau had vacated the booth, Caleb slid in next to Molly and Veth followed. The group had generally waited to eat, but where Jester sat across from Molly she had a small piece of tuna in her hand that she was dangling over her lap.

“Jester, did you bring Sprinkle?” Veth asked in a hushed whisper.

“Yeah!” Jester said brightly. “He loves tuna normally, I don’t know what’s wrong.”

As the words left her mouth, Sprinkle leapt onto the table, snagging the piece of fish that Jester was trying to feed him, growling at Fjord, and darting back into her purse.

“He’s worse than turtles,” Fjord said, glaring at where the weasel had disappeared into Jester’s purse.

“Fjord, he’s fine!” Jester whined, leaning against Fjord’s shoulder and making blink dog eyes at him.

“Just... don’t let the waitress see him,” Beau hissed. “Can someone hand me a dragon roll when they come by?”

As the group that Jester insisted on still calling the Mighty Nein, despite the lack of Yeza, retrieved their favorite pieces of sushi from the conveyor belt, Caleb reached over Molly to poke at the menu on the iPad. He went ahead and ordered his favorites, not caring to wait for them to have the possibility of drifting by on the main conveyor. When he was done, he looked down to where Molly was ducked under his arm, munching happily on a yellow rectangle on top of a scoop of rice.

“What is that, Molly,” Caleb asked, pointing at the remaining yellow rectangle on Molly’s plate.

“It’s _tamago_!” he said happily. “Means egg. They make it by mixing sugar and egg and a few other things together and frying it in a square pan. Hence, rectangle.”

“Hmm, I have never heard of that,” Caleb said.

“Have you had sushi before?” Molly asked. “Not that I think you haven’t or that you’re uncultured or something, I just see this everywhere, and it's so good and it hits that sweet and savory thing that we talked about with the milkshakes and-”

“Molly,” Caleb cut off Molly’s babbling. “ _Ja_ , I have had sushi, and do not worry, I was not offended.”

“Ok, good, cause sometimes I just say things and don’t think about it and-” Molly started again, going on while waving the piece of tamago he had between his chopsticks around wildly.

“I have never had egg sushi, though,” Caleb said once Molly’s new bout of babbling had petered out. “I mostly stick to the simple things, cuts of tuna and salmon and the like.”

“Ok, well you have to try this, it’s my favorite!” Molly said. Caleb wasn’t used to trying new foods, but with Molly, he didn’t seem to mind so much. He nodded and Molly continued, “Open.”

Caleb opened his mouth while Beau made fake gagging noises from the other end of the table. Molly popped the piece of egg into Caleb’s mouth and withdrew his chopsticks. Caleb chewed thoughtfully, mulling over the texture and the taste of the tamago.

“I like the taste, though I am unsure on the texture,” he said, finally. “I believe I could get used to it though.”

Molly grinned at him, happily wrapping his tail around Caleb’s calf in satisfaction for the time being. The group continued to grab plate after plate of sushi, amassing quite the stack of plates to deposit into the slot. Jester and Molly raced to see who could finish which side of the table’s stack first, Jester winning by three plates. After all of the dishes were inserted into the slot, the iPad beeped and showed a cartoon of a monk and a paladin joining forces to take down Tiamat. The cartoon claimed that the dining party could help them by inserting more plates into the slot.

When all was said and done, forty-eight plates had been deposited into the receptacle, netting the group three gachapon prizes. Jester, Molly, and Veth claimed them immediately, all three of them racing to open the little capsules that had rolled out of the machine.

“Oh, look at this, Caleb!” Jester said, holding up a tiny keychain. “I got Mako!”

Caleb smiled at the little anime figurine in Jester’s hand and looked over to the sign hung on the gachapon that told the reader about a promotion between the restaurant and the animation studio that had produced Jester’s favorite anime, _Kill la Kill_. He watched as Veth was finally able to open her capsule, producing a tiny eraser with a pug printed on one side.

“I got a keychain, too, sweet!” Molly said from his other side, holding up a tiny Ryuko, complete with a tiny scissor blade.

“ _Kill la Kill_ is a very good anime,” Caleb said. “Have you seen it, Molly?”

“No,” the tiefling responded, laughing and shying away from where Jester was poking at him with her keychain, “What’s it about?”

“The heroine, the one that you have,” Caleb said, trying to summarize the plot of the anime in a few sentences, “has clothing that transforms into armor. She fights with-”

“Come on, Caleb, just get Molly to watch it with you!” Jester said, trying to push Fjord and Caduceus out of the booth. “I want to get to the karaoke bar before all of the good rooms are gone!”

The eight friends all piled out of the booth of the revolving sushi restaurant, leaving a hefty tip for their waitress. Outside, the mid-Thunsheer wind chilly as the sky darkened, the group quickly walked up the stairs to the karaoke bar that was situated directly above the revolving sushi restaurant. They quickly checked in and got a room, Molly and Yasha pointing at the sign that outlined the process for downloading the app. Before Caleb realized, he was being dragged by both Molly and Jester into a neon room themed like a posh version of a prison cell. Caleb thought that the whole building was rather garish and over decorated, but he also realized that he preferred to wear neutral colors. He smiled as he watched Molly and Jester take somewhere in the vicinity of thirty selfies together.

“So, Caleb,” Beau said, sitting down on the couch beside him. “What are you going to sing?”

“Oh, I suppose singing is mandatory, _ja?_ ” he asked, looking at his old roommate. She smirked at him and nodded.

“Yeah, if I have to sing, you have to sing, dude,” Beau said. Caleb sighed and pulled out his phone, downloading the app from the sign on the wall. He scrolled for a while as Jester and Veth argued about the order in which the group was going to sing. Finally, he came upon an artist he was more familiar with than just hearing their songs in passing on the radio and quickly added one of their songs to the queue.

“Ok, so I’m going first,” Jester said, “Then Fjord, then-”

“Just sing! I want to get to my turn!” Molly shouted from across the room where he was curled into Yasha’s side.

“Fine!” Jester said, sticking her tongue out at the other tiefling. She clicked the start button, crooning out the melodic verses of “Trouble is a Friend” emphatically. Once she was finished, she flipped the mic to Fjord, who quickly popped up and sang the Disney song “How Far I’ll Go.”

“Know any _real_ music, Fjord?” Veth ribbed, flicking through the song list on her phone.

“I thought he was excellent,” Beau said, grabbing the mic from the half-orc. “But now it’s my turn, and I’m going to smoke all of you.”

“I didn’t realize it was a competition,” Molly said, smirking at Beau. She glared at him and hit start, screaming out the lyrics to Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation.” Everyone clapped for her when she was done, Beau bowing and soaking up the attention. She took one look at the next song in the queue and blushed scarlet, sidling over to Yasha and handing her the mic. Yasha stood to many complaints from Molly and started her song. As the first lyrics to “Pussy Is God” came from her mouth, Caleb watched as Beau’s face darkened even further. Molly slid over to Beau from where he was seated and whispered something in her ear causing the other human to jump a foot in the air and curse. She swatted at Molly and turned her attention back to Yasha, staring raptly at the dark haired woman.

Molly plopped down next to Caleb and snuggled into his side, lacing their fingers together. Caleb squeezed Molly’s hand at the touch, smiling at him. Molly smiled back, and leaned in close, his breath ghosting over Caleb’s ear as he whispered, “I told her to sing this song, cause I knew it’d make Beau blush.”

“Clever, _Spatzi,_ ” Caleb said, glancing over at Beau. Now, the other human looked like she wanted to eat Yasha alive. The aasimar finished her song and handed the mic to Molly, who bounced to his feet and pointed at Jester.

“I need you to be my backup singer, dear,” he said. “Don’t worry, it’s easy to pick up. Everyone else, come in on the ‘bum-bum-bums!’”

“Ok, Molly!” Jester said, turning her attention from where she was cuddled into Caduceus’ side to the screen at the front of the room. Molly clicked the start button and struck a pose, waiting for the song to start.

“Once I was the King of Spain!” Molly sang out, still in his pose, the arm that wasn’t holding the mic pointing at the ceiling.

“Now I eat humble pie!” Jester sang out from where she sat on the couch. The two went back and forth until the song reached the verse, Molly starting to roll his shoulders back and forth and step in time to the samba-like tune of the song. The theatrics continued, Molly draping himself over the couches and dancing around as the song progressed. He finished the song with a flourish of his free hand and bowed low, practically bending in half, his tail curled behind him pleasantly.

Caleb clapped zealously, trying to give Beau a look that said “clap with me.” She staunchly ignored him, scooting incrementally closer to Yasha. Caleb rolled his eyes and stood up, walking over to Molly to retrieve the mic from him. Molly raised up out of his bow with a flourish, flipping the mic around and handing it to Caleb, handle first.

“Your wand, your wizardli-ness!” Molly said. Caleb blanched a moment, but quickly recovered. Surely Molly didn’t know that he had magic, let alone would he do anything malevolent about it. Caleb smiled and swallowed his fear, yelling internally at the little anxiety demon in his head that Molly’s words were no more than a joke. He clicked start on the song and stood awkwardly staring out at his friends as the machine counted down to play the first notes.

“Ooh ooh ooh ah!” Caleb sang, vocalizing along with the backing track. “Ooh ooh ooh ah!”

“Oh hey! I had a night, I had a day,” he continued. Caleb was ecstatic that his favorite _Mother Mother_ song had been on the list of available songs. It was infrequent that his, what he thought to be fairly mainstream, taste in music was so rarely represented in rhythm games and karaoke bars.

“It's alright, it's okay, it's alright, it's okay,” he sang, running over the lyrics in his mind. He so frequently placed his sins squarely on his own shoulders, not thinking himself worthy of having good things or being happy. But Molly was the best thing to happen to Caleb in a long time, even in the litany of good things he had in his life now. The song provided a constant reminder that despite everything he’d been through, Caleb had come out the other side stronger than he ever thought possible.

The song finished and Caleb bowed a little, setting the microphone onto the counter that held the controls of the karaoke machine. Molly clapped loudly, hollering from the back of the room where he was busy snuggling into Yasha’s side, opposite of Beau. 

“Woooo! Sing it, Caleb!” he cheered. Caleb felt his cheeks grow hot as he walked back over to the couch to sit down beside the cuddle puddle that was Jester, Fjord, and Caduceus. He’d have to ask Jester what was going on there eventually. Veth and Caduceus went next, Veth screaming out a striking rendition of “S.O.B.” and Caduceus singing quietly to “Fuck It, I’m a Flower”

“Ok, it’s 9:55, so we have time for one more song or we have to buy more time,” Jester said, glancing down at her Apple Watch. “Molly! You and Caleb should do a duet!”

“I’m game if you are,” Molly said, looking at Caleb. Caleb nodded, smiling back.

“What song?” Caleb asked. “Do you know any _Phantogram?_ Are they even on the song list?”

“Ugh, if you talk too much about it, we’ll still have to pay for another hour, let me pick!” Jester said, scrolling through her phone and tapping something. She hit the remote start button and continued, “Go on! It’s starting!”

Molly hopped up and grabbed the second mic, running over to stand next to Caleb. He bumped his hip into Caleb’s and smiled, watching the screen at the back of the room intently for the lyrics. As soon as the first notes of the song started, both Molly and Caleb groaned, Molly flopping over at the waist and his tail drooping. He popped back up and stared at Jester, saying: “You had to pick _Backstreet Boys_ , huh?”

“Go! Sing!” She said, a grin spreading across her face. Caleb had a strong suspicion that this was premeditated.

“You are... my fire,” Molly started. The lyrics on the screen changed color to indicate that it was Caleb’s turn for the next line.

“The one... desire,” Caleb sang, filling in the next line.

“Believe... when I say,” Molly continued, his tail now waiving behind him in time with the music. Caleb filed away just how cute that was for later.

“I want it that way,” Caleb returned, distinctly remembering the _Alfield 99_ episode where Andy Samberg made people in a line up sing along to the same song.

“TELL ME WHY!” Caleb and Molly belted together, the cheers from their friends providing a background.

As they continued the song, Caleb thought over the lyrics to “I Want It That Way” just as he had with “It’s Alright.” He really did want this... _thing_ that he had with Molly to last. He needed to figure out how to ask Molly to be his... boyfriend? Partner? Caleb tried both words in his head before settling on asking Molly which he preferred. He was brought out of his partial reverie by warm skin against his clammy fingers and he glanced down to see Molly offering his hand. Caleb took it and smiled. He’d plan something romantic for them for their next date and ask Molly then. Maybe he could even kiss Molly...

The song finished and Jester whooped, bounding up to laugh with Molly about the silliness of the song. They were still babbling to each other when the attendant walked in to collect the microphones. Caleb gently pried Molly’s out of his hand and placed both back into the basket that they had rested in. He handed the disgruntled looking gnome the basket and assured her that everyone would be out of the room in five minutes.

“Good,” the gnome said, her accent from the same region of Tal’Dorei as Molly’s. “It’s unfortunately my job to herd cats like this, so if you want to do it for me, I won’t complain. Can’t believe my dad talked me into working here for him.”

She continued to grumble as the door closed behind her and Caleb turned back to his small group of friends. They were all gathered around Beau now, watching something on her phone.

“Caleb, oh my gods,” Molly said, beckoning him over, his eyes crinkled with laughter. “I looked so silly singing that song!”

“I thought you looked quite fetching, actually, _Spatzi,_ ” Caleb said quietly. Molly flashed him a small smile and winked, causing Caleb’s heart to do a somersault. _Gods_ , he wanted to reach over and take Molly’s face in his hands and press their lips together. He restrained himself, as he always did. He didn’t want to cause a scene with their friends and they did need to leave the room.

“What is Spain?” Jester asked Molly as the video Beau had taken of his performance finished. “Is that in Marquet?”

“Hells if I know,” Molly said, passing Beau’s phone back to her. “Come on, let's get out of here. Caleb looks like he’s going to have an aneurism if we don’t walk out that door.”

Caleb realized that his face had fallen into the expression of pained disappointment that it usually did when Jester, Veth, and Beau got up to their usual antics. He adjusted his expression to something more friendly and gestured towards the door, throwing Molly a wink. Molly walked past him to leave the karaoke booth and made eye contact with him, giving Caleb a look that said “talk to me outside.”

Eventually, Caleb was able to herd all of his friends out of the karaoke bar and into the parking lot. As everyone walked towards their respective cars, Molly hung back, waiting for Caleb.

“Hey,” Caleb said.

“Hey, yourself,” Molly responded, quoting Caleb’s response from their talk after trivia back at him. They smiled at each other and Molly stepped closer to Caleb, wrapping his arms around Caleb’s neck. Caleb swallowed thickly, unable to stop himself from licking his lips and glancing down at Molly’s.

“I had a nice time tonight,” Molly said. “You sing beautifully.”

“I think you may need your ears checked, _Spatzi,_ ” Caleb said, laughing. Molly’s face was inches away from his own now. “But I will take the compliment without another complaint.”

“Good, I’m training you well,” Molly said, smirking. He pressed his forehead to Caleb’s and his eyes fluttered closed. Caleb held his breath, not wanting to disturb the tenuous atmosphere. Caleb let his own eyes fall closed as he started to let Molly’s inherent gravity draw him in.

“MOLLY!” Yasha’s voice sounded from across the parking lot. “WE HAVE TO GO!”

Caleb opened his eyes and was met with Molly’s brilliant red ones staring back at him. Molly sighed and pulled back, turning his head to holler back at Yasha, “GIVE ME FIVE MINUTES!” 

“NO, WE HAVE TO GO NOW!” Yasha said, her voice tight. Caleb’s brow creased. Was something wrong?

“WHY?” Molly yelled back.

“JUST LISTEN TO HER, ASSHOLE!” Beau’s voice said from the same direction. “GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE OR WE’RE LEAVING WITHOUT YOU!”

“Fuck,” Molly swore, pulling back, but leaving his hands on Caleb’s shoulders. “I think my roommate’s having a girl over.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Caleb said, grinning wryly.

“Well, I don’t want to get left here, or make you drive me home,” Molly said, quickly adding the last part when he saw Caleb open his mouth. “I’ve got an idea, though. I’ll text you.”

“Ok,” Caleb said, settling his hands on Molly’s waist and giving the tiefling a light squeeze. “Goodnight, Mister Mollymauk. I hope you can sleep tonight.”

“Goodnight, Mister Caleb,” Molly said, laughing. A car horn blared out from across the lot and he rolled his eyes, leaning in quickly to kiss Caleb on the forehead. Caleb stood, rooted in place, as Molly winked at him and walked away. Hips swaying and tail waving, Molly walked across the parking lot and got into the back of Yasha’s Jeep.

“Are you ok, Caleb?” Veth’s voice said beside him. Caleb looked down at his friend and nodded, wanting to watch Yasha’s car pull out of the parking lot, but forcing himself to ignore it.

“ _Ja, Nottchen,_ ” he said. “I am quite good, actually.”

“Good,” she said. “If he hurts you I’ll kill him.”

“I do not think I will need to take you up on that offer,” Caleb said, clicking his keys and unlocking his car. “But the sentiment is... appreciated?”

The pair rode home, talking about the various performances of the evening, as top-forty played quietly on Caleb’s radio.

“ _I talk too much! Honey come put your lips on mine,_ ” the voice over the radio sang, “ _and shut me up. We could blame it all on human nature..._ ”

For the third time that night Caleb found himself mulling over song lyrics. He definitely knew that he needed to kiss Molly soon, preferably without his friends getting in the way every time. Caleb, at least, was ready to act on impulse and take things forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no... not the boys getting interrupted again... noooooooo
> 
> Also, I pulled all of these songs from their playlists!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this went up later than usual! I hope you all enjoy the chapter 

As soon as Molly had gotten into Yasha’s car, he had whipped out his phone and started texting Caleb. He knew that the human wouldn’t be able to respond immediately, but he had still wanted to outline his plan for their date tonight before he forgot. Molly’s plan was this: on Harvest’s Rise he and Caleb would go ride the ferris wheel that was recently built in the Pentamarket - the best view in the whole city for watching the fireworks. Though it was a simple enough plan, Molly still ended up running back and forth across his room trying to match the perfect outfit. He had a secondary plan up his sleeve that he hadn’t told Caleb about. Molly fully intended to kiss Caleb that night, the thought of which made his tail want to curl around his leg and thrash at the same time.

They’d been on several dates, both with their friends and without, at this point, but Molly’s stomach still turned to knots and butterflies when he thought of the date that he had planned for that evening. He parked his car in a public lot and paid for a few hours on his phone quickly before hopping out and jogging over to the base of the ferris wheel. The Harvest’s Rise festival was in full swing around him, the park across the street from the ferris wheel displaying signs advertising the fireworks later that night.

He’d picked out his favorite outfit to wear: fishnets under cuffed shorts in blue and purple motley, one leg in diamonds, the other in stripes. Even though the days had been warm, Molly had opted to add his favorite jean jacket (a rich burgundy denim, painstakingly covered hand-stitched patches) over a the white tank top to pair with the shorts.The patches ranged from logos from bands that Molly liked to one that took up the entire back of the jacket, depicting the Moonweaver’s holy symbol intertwined with a peacock that he had embroidered himself. 

Molly sat on a low wall a few feet from a street vendor selling sparklers, beads, and other kitschy holiday items. He watched a gnome bark out short phrases that got a staggering amount of tourists interested. One family, a human and a half elf with one... two... _five_ children in tow, walked up to the gnome, and purchased sparklers for three of the older children, the two younger ones safe in their mother and father’s arms. Molly smiled and kicked his brown combat boots against the wall as the family wandered away, the half elf showing her daughter how to light the sparkler and the little girl squealing delightedly at the flame.

“ _Hallo,_ Mollymauk,” Caleb’s voice said beside Molly, causing him to jump a little.

“Oh! Hi, handsome!” Molly said, turning to smile at Caleb and offer his open arms for a hug. Caleb accepted and Molly squeezed him lightly, golden horn jewelry tinkling as he surreptitiously inhaled the distinct scent of balsam and sandalwood. Caleb smelled _amazing_ and Molly had to fight himself to let go of Caleb when Caleb let go of him.

“Have you been here long?” Caleb asked, concurrently waiving at the white haired human and his wife. The man waved back, turning to the half elf and saying something. The pair walked over, their children in tow.

“Only a few minutes,” Molly said, looking over the couple as they walked over. They matched; the woman wearing some turquoise feather earrings that went strikingly with the man’s royal blue sport coat. He reached up to play absentmindedly with one of the scimitar earrings he wore as the couple walked up to Caleb.

“Hello, Caleb,” the man said, sticking out his free hand. Caleb stood and took the proffered hand, shaking it firmly.

“ _Hallo,_ Percival,” Caleb responded. “And _hallo,_ Vex’ahlia, it is good to see you both. This is my... uh...”

“Mollymauk Tealeaf, Molly to my friends,” Molly said, saving Caleb from trying to figure out something to call him. He shook both people’s hands warmly, smiling at them both.

“Percival is one of my coworkers,” Caleb said by way of explanation. Molly nodded.

“Good to meet you,” Molly said.

“It is good to meet you as well, darling,” Vex’ahlia said, “Percy wanted to come say hello, but you two look like you’re in the middle of something, so we’ll leave you be.”

‘Percy’ looked like he wanted to talk to Caleb more, but he followed his wife dutifully, waiving at Caleb and Molly as he walked off. Caleb smiled and turned to Molly.

“Sorry about that,” he said. Molly shrugged and smiled back.

“Not a problem with me, dear,” Molly said. “I bet all of those kids are a menace.”

“Veth and I visited the De Rolo’s house for dinner once,” Caleb said. “The eldest girl, Vesper, is quite brilliant. I’m certain that five children get rowdy, but they were very well behaved when I met them. This was before the youngest came along, though. He’s the same age as Luc.”

“Hmm,” Molly agreed. “Hey, do you want a sparkler?”

“ _Ja,_ sure, Molly,” Caleb said, reaching out and taking Molly’s hand. He intertwined their fingers and Molly’s stomach did another flip. “Did you write your name with sparklers when you were younger?”

“Write my name?” Molly asked, passing the gnome at the stand a few bills for a handful of sparklers. “How does that work?”

“I will show you when it gets a bit darker,” Caleb said, his mouth curling into a smile that reminded Molly of the smirking cat emoji. Molly tucked his purchase under his arm and the two began to stroll around the Pentamarket Plaza.

After wandering around for about an hour, procuring some bubble tea from Caduceus, and splitting a soft pretzel, Molly and Caleb made their way back to the foot of the ferris wheel. It was getting dark and Molly had booked their tickets for right when the fireworks were supposed to start, in hopes that they could get a good view of the display. Of course, he had his ulterior motives, namely, kissing Caleb and asking him to be his boyfriend in as romantic a fashion as possible.

“I don’t think I mentioned it, but you look lovely tonight, darling,” Molly said absentmindedly, his tail winding around his ankle.

“ _Vielen dank_ ,” Caleb said. “But I pale in comparison to you, Mollymauk.”

“Oh-ho-ho, full name, did I do something bad, Mister Caleb?” Molly asked, quirking an eyebrow in Caleb’s direction.

“ _N-Nein,_ I just-” Caleb stammered. Molly thought he saw the human’s face light up a very pretty scarlet that clashed horribly with his hair, but it was dark and his darkvision was beginning to override all color.

“I’m just teasing,” Molly said, smiling and squeezing Caleb’s hand, his other hand pulling at the red heart shaped pendant around his neck. Caleb chucked rubbed at his neck in embarrassment.

“It is dark enough now,” Caleb said after a moment. He pulled out his phone and fiddled with a few settings before turning it sideways, clearly intending to take a picture. “If you would light your sparkler and write your name in the air in cursive, Molly?”

“Um,” Molly started, eyebrows furrowing. “I’m not following.”

“I want to show you something, write your name in the air with the sparkler,” Caleb repeated. Molly shrugged and pulled one of the sparklers out from under his arm. The sparkler was the type that you could strike against the ground and they would light, so Molly did just that. The sparkler flared to life and when Caleb nodded, Molly began to spell out his name in thin air. He finished and watched the sparkler spit and sputter, burning for a few more moments before dying out. Molly wandered over to a recycling receptacle and deposited the spent firework before walking back over to where Caleb was still fiddling with his phone.

“So, what was this about?” Molly asked, circling around Caleb to peer over his shoulder. Caleb turned, moving the phone away from Molly.

“Wait just a moment, I don’t want to spoil it before it is done,” Caleb said, tapping a few more options. Soon, he smiled, satisfied with himself, and beckoned Molly over to him. When Caleb turned his phone, Molly gasped at the image in front of him. With the darkness and the light of the sparkler, the image was very clearly that of a purple tiefling, though he himself was blurry. The focal point of the picture was his name, glowing in the middle in brilliant yellow, orange, and white flame.

“Wow...” Molly whispered. “That’s amazing, Caleb!”

“I would do this with my friends when I was a boy,” Caleb said. “As children, we would steal one or two bottle rockets from the zenith celebrations and stash them away until we had a large stash, then we would set them off in the cul de sac.”

“I knew you had a rebellious streak in you,” Molly laughed. “Did you ever burn anything down?”

Something passed over Caleb’s face for a mere instant, but Molly noticed Caleb’s fond smile of reminiscence falter slightly. Fuck. He scrambled to change the subject, but was saved by his phone beeping in his pocket to remind him of the approaching ferris wheel time slot.

“Ah, that’ll be our tickets,” Molly said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. His tail was even more erratic now, whipping behind him like a ribbon in the wind. “Come on, let’s go ride the ferris wheel.”

The look on Caleb’s face passed and he nodded, letting himself be led by the hand over to the docking station of the cars of the ferris wheel. Molly displayed the QR code to the attendant, pulling Caleb inside the car after he was given the all clear by the employee. They sat down and buckled themselves in, the employee shutting and locking the door. As the wheel began to turn, Molly squeezed Caleb’s hand and looked out over the horizon, the fingers of his other hand automatically fiddling with his other necklace, a costume Jewelry Platinum dragon pendant. He saw the buildings and skyscrapers stretch out for miles; the ‘pencil building,’ the _Zadash Institute of Technology Stadium_ , and the _Zadash Aquarium_. Even the ugly inverted trapezoid of _Zadash Power_ gave him more joy than he could begin to articulate.

“I...” Molly began, his words catching in his throat. Of course he would get choked up _now._ After a moment of Caleb looking at him and letting him gather his thoughts, Molly continued: “I really love this city, Caleb.”

“It is beautiful, _ja,_ ” Caleb agreed, gazing out over the landscape with Molly, their fingers still intertwined.

“I don’t ever want to leave,” Molly said quietly, wondering if Caleb had heard him or not.

Caleb turned back to look at him and smiled, saying, “You don’t have to.”

Molly opened his mouth to respond when the wheel stopped, Molly and Caleb’s car at the very apex of the wheel’s trajectory. A moment later, there was the sound of an explosion and color lit up the sky. Molly looked over to Caleb’s face, watching as the human’s eyes grew wide in amazement. Even he had to admit that he’d never experienced fireworks like this before. The fireworks from _Centennial Arcanum Park_ glittered in the twilight, the pre programmed shapes telling the story of the Divergence. The pair watched with rapt attention, the display finishing after about ten minutes.

“You planned this date very well, Mollymauk,” Caleb said eventually, turning back to face Molly.

“There’s my full name again,” Molly said jokingly before looking up and realizing how close he and Caleb were. Each of their personal gravities drew the other in until they were barely an inch apart.

“Caleb,” Molly said quietly.

“ _Ja?_ ” the human whispered, almost like he didn’t want to shatter the fragile tension between them.

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

And Molly closed the distance between himself and Caleb, brushing his lips lightly against the human’s. He began to pull back, but Caleb’s hands were on his face, pulling him into a deeper kiss. Molly wrapped his arms around Caleb’s neck, throwing himself into the kiss. At first it was still timid, still something new and fragile, just brought into the world. As they grew accustomed to the feel of each other, Molly felt his tail wrap around Caleb’s knee posessively, his fingers carding through the human’s hair.

“Ahem,” Molly heard from behind Caleb. They broke apart and Molly looked up to see the ferris wheel attendant glaring down at them. “Time’s up, lovebirds.”

Caleb flushed scarlet again as Molly mumbled an apology and scrambled out of the car. Once they were free of the platform, Caleb grabbed Molly’s hand and practically dragged him across the street to the park.

As soon as they found a bench to sit on, Caleb pulled Molly close and was kissing him again fiercely, the human’s hand resting on the back of his neck. Molly kissed back readily, hands cupping Caleb’s face gently, fingers stroking over the coarse hair of his beard. Eventually, they had to stop; foreheads pressed together, eyes closed, their breaths came in heavy pants in time with one another.

“I’ve wanted to do that since trivia,” Molly said, opening his eyes to look at Caleb.

“Mmhmm,” Caleb agreed. “I have wanted the same.”

“We’re idiots, huh?” Molly laughed. Caleb started laughing too; genuine, hearty laughs, as he wrapped his arms around Molly. Molly returned the hug, relishing the feeling of safety that came with hugging Caleb. 

“I would beg to differ,” Caleb shot back, pulling back a little to look over Molly’s face in the darkness. “I think that agreeing to go out was the smartest thing that either of us ever did.”

“Charmer,” Molly said, smiling. After a moment of just sitting in each other’s arms, Molly asked, “Does this mean you’re my boyfriend now?”

“ _Ja,_ ” Caleb said immediately. “If you will have me.”

“Oh, I’ll have you alright,” Molly said. Caleb blushed, smiling shyly at Molly. Molly realized what he had said and blushed himself, but he decided not to babble away his perceived awkwardness this time, choosing instead to wink at Caleb. Caleb laughed again and Molly sighed, melting back into his arms. He could listen to Caleb’s laugh for the rest of his life.

“Er... Molly?” Caleb asked after a moment.

“Yes, darling?” Molly said, looking up at his _boyfriend._

“What term do you prefer?” Caleb asked. Molly cocked an eyebrow and pulled back to get a better look at the man in his arms.

“Term?”

“What should I refer to you as, as my romantic partner?” Caleb clarified. “Since you are genderfluid.”

“Oh!” Molly said, excitedly. No one had asked him that before. “Thank you for asking! Um. Boyfriend or partner is fine. Honestly both are fine. I’m not a huge fan of other things, but that’s just me.”

“Partner it is,” Caleb said, pressing his forehead back to Molly’s. Molly twisted his head, catching Caleb’s mouth in another kiss, sparks flying through his brain at just that simple act. They stayed there well into the night; talking, holding each other, and kissing. Caleb’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket to check the notification.

“Veth asking where her boy is?” Molly asked wryly. Caleb looked at him and smiled.

“How did you know?” he chuckled. Molly grinned back.

“Lucky guess,” Molly said. Caleb chuckled again, offering a hand to Molly. Molly took it, and Caleb pulled him into another kiss, this one lighter no matter how much Molly tried to deepen it.

“I will see you later, _Schatz,_ ” Caleb said when they parted. Molly nodded and smiled at him shyly. Caleb gave him one more peck on the forehead before walking away towards the parking deck into the gathering night. Molly sighed and spun around happily, skipping off in the opposite direction to his car, full to the brim with excited energy. On the way home he made sure to call Jester, giving them all of the details of how the date went, hardly able to hide the excitement in his voice.

“Hi, Molly,” Jester’s voice said through his speakerphone as Molly pulled out of the parking lot.

“Hiiiii, Jessie,” Molly said, a smirk playing across his features even though Jester couldn’t see it. “Soooo...”

“ _Oh my gods!_ ” Jester squealed. “Did you kiss him??”

“Yes!!!” Molly cheered. By the time he had answered all one hundred of Jester's questions about the date, Molly was home. He practically danced up the stairs to his apartment, catching Yasha eating peanut butter out of a jar in the kitchen as he walked in. He grabbed her, spinning her in a quick box waltz before abruptly sprinting off to his room, yelling back to Yasha, “I kissed him! I did it!”

“Congratulations?” he heard Yasha say as his bedroom door slammed behind him. Molly flopped onto his bed on top of the duvet and stared at the ceiling, replaying the entire night in his head. He really led a charmed life. Wonderful friends, beautiful boyfriend, and fulfilling job. What more could he ask for? But before he knew it, Mollymauk Tealeaf fell asleep thinking of all of the things that he couldn’t wait to experience with Caleb Widogast, his mind racing off into a dreamland of possibilities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They finally kiiiiiiiiiissed!


	11. Chapter 11

Molly’s tail flicked lazily from its position draped over the back of the large armchair that rested in he and Yasha’s living room. The chair was horribly mismatched with the couch, coffee table, and, well, everything, really. Molly liked the way the explosion of color of his and Yasha’s living room reflected both of their personalities. All of the prints on the various furniture items were floral, and if you looked at it long enough, all of them seemed to go together rather well. Molly thought the living room worked, just like his wardrobe.

He was curled up in the corner of the living room, scrolling through TikTok searching for audios to dance to. He considered learning the WAP dance, but figured he’d wait on Jester for that one. Finally settling on a few dances and saving a bunch of TikToks to duet, he rolled backwards off the armchair, landing on his feet. He walked over to his filming wall, pulling at the tapestries clipped up and hung on a curtain rod. Molly selected one that had suns and moons emblazoned on it in black print over blue, pink and orange tie dye.

For today’s filming session, Molly wore his favorite red hot pants and a white t-shirt with the slogan “Street Smarts!” that had been cut up into a crop top. He practiced the Cannibal dance a few times before getting the hang of it and putting his own spin on it. Molly danced in front of the camera for a while, but his mind began to wander to what Caleb was up to today. He checked the time on his phone and saw that it was nearly 6 PM. Grabbing the phone from its cradle on his ring light, Molly walked back over to the armchair and flopped into it upside down, flicking open the messages app and clicking on Caleb’s name.

Prince of cats (caleb )  
  
So handsome. what are you doing for dinner tonight??   
  
Ah, Hallo, Molly. I do not know, but I did recently watch a new video on Shepherd's Pie. I may make that.  
  
Sounds tasty!  
  
Yash wants to make curry, but she’s with Beau rn so idk if she’ll be back for dinner  
  
Or at all  
  
Lmao  
  
Ha. I am glad I do not live with Beauregard anymore.  
  
Yeah, you should be, it’s exhausting  
  
Not that i’m involved lol  
  
Whatever team she plays for, I definitely dont play for that one  
  
Heh  
  
By now I should know that it’s team “fuck off”  
  
Anyway  
  
  
  
It is indeed, team “fuck off.”  
  
Do you want to come over for dinner tonight, liebling?  
  
  
  
YES  
  
Omg youre gonna make food I’m so excited you’ve been bragging to me about your cooking for AGES  
  
Want me to bring anything??  
  
  
  
Nein, just your pretty self. I will take care of the rest.  
  
  
  
Mr caleb  
  
You can take care of me too  
  
  
  
Mx. Mollymauk. I need to drive to the grocery store from work. I will text you when I am done and you can come over then. It takes you the same amount of time to get to my apartment as it takes me to get home from the grocery store.  
  
  
  
Want me to bring anything??  
  
  
  
But yes, don’t text and drive  
  
  
  
<3  
  


Molly sat back and swapped apps on his phone, opening up TikTok again to look over his choices of dances to duet. He decided against doing someone else's dance and decided to come up with another of his own, opening his saved sounds and quickly finding an _Abba_ song to dance to. As the chorus of “Waterloo” drifted out of his phone's tinny speakers, Molly spun and rocked his hips back and forth, syncing the motions of his arms and tail with how his hips swayed.

He watched the video back, finally satisfied, and hit the post button, watching a video about someone talking about how to safely create rope cuffs while the little progress bar crawled across the top of his screen. The video posted and he watched it once before closing the app to check the time. 7:45 PM. Caleb hadn’t called him yet. Molly felt worry twist in his stomach, but he told himself that it was nothing. All he had to do was call Caleb and check in.

The phone rang for an achingly long time before Caleb picked up. “ _Scheiße,_ I do not care that you had somewhere to be, the light was red!” Caleb said, obviously holding the phone away from his face. He moved it closer and continued, “ _Hallo, Spatzi, tut mir leid,_ how are you?”

“Uh...” Molly said, his brain trying to process what was going on and figure out the situation with the little information he had. “I’m good. Are you ok?”

“ _Ja, ja,_ ” Caleb sighed. “I am fine. Someone ran a red light and hit my car. Neither of us are hurt, but this man is being an _arschloch_ about the accident being his fault.”

“Oh fuck,” Molly replied. “Um, I know you said that you’re ok, but do you need me to, like, I don’t know, come get you?”

“ _Ja_ ,” Caleb said after a moment. “That would be very nice and I would hate for the groceries to spoil.”

“Ever the pragmatist,” Molly teased. “Where are you? I’ll come get you now.”

“I am at the intersection of Ninth Avenue and Somnus Boulevard, outside an apartment building called ‘Post Zadash Midtown,’” Caleb said, rattling off the information immediately. Molly snorted, running to the door that led to the balcony of his apartment.

“You’re right outside my apartment, love,” Molly said, wrenching open the door and looking down into the intersection below. Sure enough, there in the gathering twilight were two destroyed cars, a ginger human on a phone on a street corner, a blond human standing in the middle of the street talking to a blond city watch elf. He brought the phone back to his ear and said, “Look up, darling!”

Caleb turned towards the apartment building and looked up, waving at Molly from down on the street. Molly smiled and waved back, watching a tow truck pull up and a stocky dwarven woman get out of the front seat. Caleb caught her eye and turned back to Molly and said, “That is my tow truck, _Spatzi,_ I need to go.”

“Ok,” Molly replied. “I’ll come down and let you in. Bye!”

With a noise of assent, Molly ended the call and sprinted back inside, slipping a simple pair of black Vans on his feet and grabbing his keys before tearing out the door. It didn’t take him long to wind his way through his apartment's maze of hallways to reach the front gate, and he pushed it open to find Caleb finishing up with the tow truck operator.

“ _Ja,_ Keg, thank you for all your help. I just sent the Venmo payment,” Caleb said. The dwarven woman grunted, opening the app and double checking the payment on her own phone.

“Thanks. Sorry about your car,” she said, fishing a cigarette out of her pocket and lighting it. She took a drag and looked over to where the blond human was now shouting into his own phone. “Glad you’re the one that called me and not him.”

Caleb snorted. “I agree. He seems most unpleasant. I feel bad for the officer, though.”

“Eh, they’re all the same, I’m sure they can handle it,” Keg said, turning back to Caleb from where she was looking over the scene. “I’ll call you Whelsen, sometime in the afternoon, after I evaluate your car.”

“ _Ah, danke,_ ” Caleb said, holding out his hand for Molly. Molly walked up and grabbed the proffered hand, squeezing it lightly as the dwarf walked away back towards her truck. Caleb turned to Molly and smiled wide, bending down to pick up a reusable bag from _Pumat’s Grocery_ and sling it over his shoulder. “Thank you for coming to get me, _Schatz._ ”

“You’re welcome,” Molly said, smiling back at his boyfriend. “It was uphill both ways, you know. I think it snowed on the way here, too.”

“However will I repay you?” Caleb bemoaned jokingly. “I suppose you will have to accept Shepherd's Pie and a kiss as payment for your struggles.”

“I guess that’s acceptable,” Molly joked back. “Come on, this way.”

He led Caleb up the stairs and back through the labyrinthine hallways to the door to his apartment. Caleb snorted at Molly’s doormat that said “If you’re pizza, Amazon, or Natalie Dormer, we’re home” and stepped through the door as Molly held it open. He walked into the small kitchen just off the entryway and set the bag down on the counter.

“Do you mind if I put the groceries in your refrigerator?” Caleb said. Molly nodded and gestured towards the appliance that was covered in magnets and a small whiteboard. Caleb looked questioningly at the whiteboard before opening the door to the fridge and setting the bag down to unload it. He asked, “What is the whiteboard for?”

“Oh, that helps with ADHD,” Molly said. “I can never remember what’s in the fridge, so I write it all on the board with the dates.”

Caleb finished putting the food into the fridge and stood, closing the door and surveying the rest of the magnets. There were a few from places Yasha had been on hikes, but the majority of the magnets were children’s block letter magnets that someone had arranged to write out “bE4u wuZ h3re.” Molly snorted, not having noticed that before now.

“I can start dinner in a minute,” Caleb said, setting the bag with the room temperature ingredients on the counter and reaching into it. He brought out a small object and held it in his hand before continuing, “But I wanted to give you something, first.”

Molly’s ears perked up. “Give me something?”

“ _Ja,_ we have been dating for four months on Yulisen,” Caleb said. Molly’s face fell. He was terrible with dates, and he mentally kicked himself for not putting that one in his calendar. Caleb saw his expression and reached out to grab his hand, pulling Molly towards him. “ _Nein_ , I do not care about this type of thing normally, but I saw this and thought of you.” 

Molly looked at the object that had found its way into his hand and smiled, his features lighting up in excitement. In his hand there sat a PopSocket with the image of a night sky on it. The gold paint shimmered in the fluorescent light of the kitchen. It matched Molly’s current horn jewelry perfectly.

“Thank you, Caleb,” Molly said, quietly. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and set it on the counter, peeling the backing off the adhesive of the PopSocket and sticking it down to the back of his phone. After a moment, he tested the adhesive and popped out the PopSocket, rocking it around and standing his phone up on the counter. He looked up at Caleb and saw the human with what he had come to call Caleb’s ‘adoration look’ on his face. Molly finally said, “I don’t have anything for you.”

“That is fine, _Spatzi,_ ” Caleb said, pulling Molly into a hug. Molly went easily, his arms coming up to hold Caleb close to him. Into his shoulder, Caleb continued, “Like I said, it reminded me of you. I would have bought it, date notwithstanding.”

Leaning in, Molly kissed Caleb, his eyes falling closed and his hands finding their way into Caleb’s hair. Molly didn’t know how long they stood there kissing, but when Caleb pulled back, Molly’s head was spinning with the lack of air and the endorphins. Smiling, Caleb dropped his arms and went over to the oven, Molly leaning after him subconsciously.

“Dinner?” Caleb asked, quirking an eyebrow up and smirking at Molly.

“Yeah,” Molly said, inhaling and trying to think of anything other than how hot Caleb looked right now, leaning against the counter with his hair a little mussed from kissing. “Yeah. Dinner. I’m hungry. What can I do to help?”

They cooked the Shepherd's Pie together, Caleb giving Molly short instructions that Molly didn’t have to struggle to remember. Once the meal was in the oven, they sat on the couch and watched the new episode of _Stump Sohla_ together, cuddling and laughing as the professional chef made a gourmet meal from bodega ingredients. The oven beeped and Caleb walked into the kitchen. Molly turned off the TV and stood, walking into the kitchen to see Caleb with his hands on his hips staring at the dish with the Shepherd’s Pie in it.

“Where are the plates, _liebling?_ ” he asked, turning to Molly. Molly wondered how Caleb got the dish out of the oven without mitts, as the human couldn’t be fire resistant like he was, but he quickly dismissed it from his mind. He opened the cupboard and pulled down two mismatched plates, one with a cat on it and the other a bright blue. He set them down on the counter next to Caleb and grabbed cups from the cabinet next to the plates.

“What do you want to drink?” Molly asked, running over the options in his head. “We’ve got... tap water.”

“Tap water is perfect,” Caleb said, hugging Molly from behind. Molly’s heart leapt at the contact. That, combined with seeing Caleb making himself at home in Molly’s space made Molly’s domestic fantasies from months ago even more of a reality. Caleb released him with a small squeeze and picked up their plates, carrying them over to the small table in the corner. Molly grabbed two forks and the cups of water and followed Caleb, setting the forks and glasses down at each place.

Molly asked about Caleb’s latest work project while they ate and Caleb talked at length about things that Molly didn’t think were even real words. But, nonetheless, he smiled and nodded along, asking questions when he didn’t understand something. Caleb was more than happy to make sure that Molly understood everything before moving on, something that Molly didn’t fail to appreciate. When they finished dinner and Molly stuck the dishes into the dishwasher, he had a fairly comprehensive understanding of Arcane Virtual Reality training for various medical fields.

“So,” Caleb said when they were done cleaning up from dinner and putting all of the food away. “I am more than happy to call a Lyft now if I am imposing, but-”

“Oh, darling, no!” Molly cut him off. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. I like having you here.”

“ _Danke_ , Molly,” Caleb said. “What were you doing before I turned your day on its head?”

Molly snorted. “Very little could truly turn my day on its head, dear. I was filming Tiktoks.”

“Ah,” Caleb said, looking over at where Molly gestured to the ring light set up against a wall. “Will you teach me one of the dances?”

“Wh-” Molly started, doing a double take and raising an eyebrow at Caleb. “ _You_ want to learn a TikTok dance?”

“ _Ja_!” Caleb said brightly. “I downloaded the app after we started dating. You are very cute and move very... uh, move very nicely.”

Molly laughed and blushed, his tail swishing behind him excitedly. “Of course I’ll teach you a dance, Caleb. Which one?”

Caleb thought for a moment. “I do not know most of their names,” he finally said. Molly smiled devilishly at him.

“Okay!” he said. “Let's learn the WAP dance together! It's on my list of dances to learn!”

Molly tried his hardest to bite back the laughter that bubbled out of him at Caleb’s shocked expression and scarlet cheeks, but he couldn’t hold it back for more than thirty seconds. Caleb seemed not to catch on, saying, “I... don’t know if I can, um, do that...”

“I’m just teasing, love,” Molly said, walking over to Caleb and wrapping him in a hug, his tail winding around the human’s ankle. “We can do something easier.”

Eventually, they settled on learning a dance to a mashup of three songs. The dance was simple enough, with very few foot movements and some basic arm movements, the most complex element being a twirl with a butt slap. Caleb, while able perform precise movements with his hands when his job required, was utterly hopeless at overall coordination while dancing. Molly picked up the dance very quickly, but ended up having to coach Caleb through every step.

Finally, Caleb was able to do the dance to the beat without the song slowed down at all. On the last take of the night, Caleb got the dance as near perfect as he was going to, collapsing in a heap on the floor once the video cut off. Molly joined him, both of them laughing at the evening's antics. Molly looked at Caleb from their position on the floor, Caleb reaching out and pulling Molly into a kiss. Molly kissed back, humming into Caleb’s mouth when he felt the human’s hands on his waist, pulling Molly on top of him.

“Mmm, Caleb,” Molly said, breaking the kiss. He was straddling his boyfriend’s hips, hands on Caleb’s shoulders and a pleasant heat pooling in his gut. “I’m very pleased with the direction this seems to be going, but we should talk about this first.”

“ _Ja_ , okay,” Caleb said, letting go of Molly’s waist and pushing himself into a sitting position. “I will be plain. I wish to take you to bed, Mollymauk.”

Molly swallowed thickly. _That_ certainly sounded appealing. He cleared his throat and said, “Okay! I am down for anything. But I want you to know that this goes as far as you want it to and no more, alright?”

“Okay,” Caleb agreed, grabbing Molly’s hand. “You are very lovely, _Schatz_ , I want to worship you.”

“Darling,” Molly scoffed. “I’m sweaty and wearing a crop top with a John Mulaney meme on it.”

“ _Ja_ , and you are beautiful,” Caleb reiterated. Molly blushed, tucking a stray curl behind his horn. He leaned forward, letting Caleb meet him, sinking back into the kiss with ease. They stayed like that, lips moving against each other, small noises coming from both of them. Caleb broke the kiss this time.

“Molly?” he asked.

“Yes, darling?” Molly answered.

“Do you...” Caleb seemed to be at war with himself. “Do you _want_ to have sex?”

“Yes!” Molly exclaimed, scooting a little closer to Caleb. “Caleb, I would like nothing more than for you to take me into my room, lock the door, and have your way with me all night.”

“Are you sure?” Caleb asked tentatively. “You are not just trying to appease me?”

Molly laughed again. “Darling, you are the most attractive man I’ve ever met! I should be the one worried about you appeasing me.”

“So we both have self esteem issues, then,” Caleb said wryly. Molly laughed again.

“Well, I could have told you that after our first meeting!”

The pair laughed together, eventually ending up with their foreheads pressed together, red eyes meeting blue. Molly inhaled slowly, holding the breath for a moment before exhaling.

“Come on,” he said, standing up and offering Caleb his hand. “Let me show you my room.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the video with the timecode for the dance that they do: https://youtu.be/-a1gXWGmiXo?t=206
> 
> Hope you're looking forward to next week as much as I am :3


	12. Six Ways from Da'leysen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so! Welcome to the smut chapter! (one of several) For this fic, I couldn't decide if I wanted Molly to be trans or not, so I wrote both. They're overall the same, which a few differences for anatomy. Just search "AMAB" or "AFAB" in the page to pick the one you want. I use words like clit and cunt to describe Molly in the AFAB version. Oh, also, smut chapters have titles, cause I thought about separating them at first but decided against it.
> 
> Thank you [Meridas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meridas/pseuds/Meridas) for beta-ing this chapter!

_AMAB Molly_

Molly wrenched open the door and tore through, pulling Caleb in after him. The door was barely closed before Caleb was pressing him against it, hands on either side of his head and pressing burning kisses to Molly’s lips. Molly opened his mouth to Caleb’s probing tongue, moaning wantonly as Caleb shoved his knee between Molly’s legs and pressed up. He let Caleb explore his mouth at the human’s leisure, twisting his forked, pierced tongue around Caleb’s boring one. Molly’s hands grabbed at the fabric of Caleb’s sweater, the material giving him not as good of a hold on the other man as he would have liked.

“You’re beautiful, too, you know,” Molly said when they broke for air, leaning his forehead against Caleb’s shoulder and panting lightly. One of Caleb’s hands found Molly’s chin, bringing his face back to Caleb’s so that the human could continue to kiss him ragged. Caleb was actively moaning into Molly’s mouth now, hands running over the skin at Molly’s ribs that was left exposed by his crop top.

Turning his head so that Caleb’s next onslaught of affection glanced off of his cheek instead of pulling him back in, Molly placed his hands gently on either side of Caleb’s face. “I’m not lying, love.”

“I know, Mollymauk,” Caleb said, pressing their foreheads together.

Molly took that as a sign to continue with his praise, “Every time you look at me with your brilliant eyes and your full focus is on me, I feel like a Winter’s Crest tree, lit up from tail to horns.”

“ _Schatz_ , I—” Caleb started, but Molly put a gentle finger over his lips.

“Let me finish,” he said. Caleb nodded and kissed the pad of Molly’s finger lightly. Molly giggled and continued, “Your hair is so soft and it’s so _nice_ to run my hands through. Your clothes are so well fitted and show off your... everything so nicely.”

“Molly,” Caleb started again, but Molly was on a roll.

“You are _so_ smart! Whenever you talk about your job, I have no idea what you're saying, but I love watching you talk about it, because you obviously care about your work a lot. And then whenever I’m confused you explain it to me without talking down to me!”

“That is just common courtesy,” Caleb muttered.

Molly smiled at him and kept going: “Your... your fingers,” he choked out, head clouding with the image of what he was asking for. “They have to be so dexterous to work with those tiny parts that you showed me tonight... I can’t wait to have them inside of me.”

At that, Caleb was back to kissing Molly with a vengeance, almost like he was making up for the time lost while Molly was babbling. Molly threw himself into the kiss with equal vigor, unable to stop his hands from working their way into Caleb’s hair. He felt Caleb palm at the rapidly growing bulge in his crotch and groaned, tugging at Caleb’s hair.

Caleb opened his mouth and pulled back, following the pull of Molly’s hands and whining, a high pitched and needy sound. Molly let go of his hair immediately, cursing, “Shit shit shit, I’m so sorry, I got carried away.”

His boyfriend grabbed one of Molly’s hands and messily guided it back to his head, looking at him through hooded eyes. Molly wound his hand back into Caleb’s hair and pulled experimentally, delighting when Caleb pulled in the opposite direction and whined again. It took a moment for it to dawn on Molly exactly what was happening, but when he caught on, he pulled Caleb back to his mouth urgently. _Gods,_ how did he get so lucky?

“Cay...” Molly hummed when they broke apart again.

“ _Ja,_ Molly?” Caleb said, his breathing heavy.

“Gods!” Molly exclaimed, looking across at Caleb, his eyes shining. “Darling, I’ve imagined you pinning me to this door like this six ways from Da’leysen.”

“ _Ja?_ ” Caleb said smiling, his accent thick with arousal. “Tell me, Mollymauk, what happens in this fantasy?”

“Well...” Molly started, bringing images to his mind. “First, you pin me to the door and kiss me ragged. Once my lips are swollen and kiss-bruised—”

“Check,” Caleb said, smirking at him. Molly swallowed thickly.

“Yeah, no kidding,” he said. “Once my lips are kiss-bruised, you let me suck your cock, but don’t cum from my mouth. Then, right as you’re about to cum, you tell me and I pull back, you taking me by the horn and flinging me to the bed.”

Caleb groaned, tipping forward and pressing his forehead to Molly’s shoulder this time, hand still resting on Molly’s now aching cock. Molly continued, “Then, you kneel between my legs and tease me until I’m begging for you, you only giving me relief once you think I’ve earned it.”

“And what if I don’t think you’ve earned it?” Caleb asked, straightening to look Molly in the eye. Molly was confused.

“Pardon?” he said, his brow furrowing.

“What if I don’t think you’ve begged prettily enough?” Caleb asked. Molly bit back a whine in his throat, but it was helpless, every part of his body was screaming out for Caleb to touch him, to rip his clothes off and force him to his knees. Caleb continued, “What if I don’t think you’ve pleased me enough with your mouth, _Spatzi?_ ”

“Gods,” Molly choked out, hips twitching as Caleb pressed a little harder with the heel of his hand. “ _Caleb!_ ”

“Answer my question, Molly,” Caleb said, something hard and commanding entering his voice. He continued to tease Molly, kneading at his erection with his hand.

“I will do whatever you ask of me to get your cock in my ass, Caleb,” Molly said, wrapping his arms around Caleb’s neck. Caleb darted in and pressed a kiss to Molly’s pulse point, smiling against his neck.

“There’s a good boy.”

Molly scoffed, which turned into a moan as he gently pushed Caleb back, letting his arms slide from Caleb’s shoulders as he sank to his knees. Caleb sucked in a breath and placed a tentative hand on Molly’s horn as Molly fiddled with his belt buckle. Feeling the touch, Molly looked up and smiled, nodding his head slightly to let Caleb know that this was okay. Once he was through Caleb’s belt, Molly made short work of the human’s fly on his jeans. He pulled Caleb's pants down slowly, bringing his hands back up to let his fingers dance along the waistline of Caleb’s boxers. Caleb gasped at the light touches of Molly’s fingertips and the points of the eight talons that he did not keep cropped short.

Pulling Caleb’s boxers down so that the garment bared the divots in Caleb’s hips, but did not yet free his prick from its confines, Molly began to press light kisses across his stomach. Caleb gasped at each point of contact, Molly feeling Caleb’s cock twitch under his chin more than once. He smiled and chuckled against the human’s warm skin before pulling back and looking up.

“Are marks okay, darling?” Molly asked sweetly. “You’re so delicious, I can hardly help but devour you.”

“ _Gotter, Molly, ja, ja,_ ” Caleb whined in Zemnian. Despite his thick accent, Molly had picked up enough of the language over the last few months to know an enthusiastic yes when he heard one. “ _Ich möchte sehen, wo du gewesen bist._ ”

“That last part I don’t understand, dear,” Molly chuckled. “You’ll have to say that one in Common.”

“ _Ach, tut mir_ —sorry, Molly,” Caleb said, blushing. “Please, mark me. I want to see where you’ve been.”

“Don’t have to ask me twice,” Molly said quietly before squinting up at Caleb. “Wait, actually, you did.”

The two lovers looked at each other for a moment before dissolving into laughter, Molly leaning his head against Caleb’s hip for support while Caleb leaned against the door above him. Eventually, when they both recovered themselves, Molly pressed a quick kiss to the apex of the trail of fine red hair the lead downward from Caleb’s belly button. Caleb gasped at the contact again, trying his best not to thrust his hips into Molly’s face. Molly grinned and set to work on Caleb’s hip, sucking a love bite just to the side of the divot. Caleb cried out when he felt Molly’s fangs, trembling even more than he had been previously.

Molly sat back on his heels and surveyed his work, admiring the developing bruise on the human. His skin was so pale that he bruised almost instantly. Molly recalled one time where Caleb had walked into a door frame incorrectly and knocked his arm, the entire appendage coloring purple over the next few days.

He shook his head slightly to stop his mind from wandering and returned to the task at hand. Molly hooked his fingers over the waistband of Caleb’s boxers and pulled the offending garment down, sucking in a breath as Caleb’s cock sprung free of its confines. Reaching out, he traced a singular finger up the underside of Caleb’s dick, imagining all of the possibilities at hand. Caleb jerked at the contact, still leaning over against the door and looking down at Molly. Molly cast his eyes upward again, pressing a light kiss to Caleb’s head as he made eye contact with the ginger.

“ _Gotter, bitte, Molly, bitte,_ ” Caleb whined, his thighs visibly tensing. Molly grinned at him, his fangs flashing in the string lights that illuminated the room, and took Caleb into his mouth. Caleb gasped and shook as Molly traced his tongue up the underside of Caleb’s shaft, pressing the piercing directly under the head as he pulled away.

Molly took a few slow, deep breaths, forcing himself to relax, playing with Caleb’s slit with the tips of his tongue as he did. Caleb continued to make such wonderful noises as Molly continued to tease him, suddenly surging forward and taking Caleb to the hilt. Molly swallowed around Caleb, closing his eyes and moaning around Caleb’s cock. He had wanted this for _so long,_ and he was sure now that Caleb had as well.

“ _Scheiße, ich_ — _ich bin nah,_ ” Caleb cried out after mere moments of Molly’s ministrations, his hand tightening on Molly’s horn, pushing him away. Molly followed the direction willingly, not wanting to push Caleb into something he didn’t want, despite how much fun he was having.

“What is it, darling?” he asked, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand as Caleb caught his breath above him.

“ _Scheiße,_ ” Caleb swore again. “You are very, _very_ good at that, _Spatzi._ ”

“Thank you!” Molly said brightly. “Wait, was something wrong, though? Did I hurt you? Why did you want me to stop?”

“You are so good at that,” Caleb started, straightening and pushing his pants all the way down to his ankles so that he could kick his way free of them, “that I was ready to spill myself down your throat. That was better than I ever could have imagined.”

Molly blinked, standing to help Caleb pull his shirt and sweater over his head. “You imagined me sucking your dick?”

When the shirt came off of Caleb’s head, the human was blushing. “ _Ja,_ ” he said quietly.

“Mr. Caleb!” Molly scoffed, a half smirk forming on his face. “What other fantasies have you had about me?”

“I will tell you later,” Caleb said, capturing Molly’s waist in his hands and rubbing at the waistband of Molly’s shorts. “Right now, we are enacting yours, _ja?_ ”

“ _Ja, ja,_ ” Molly responded, grinning and wiggling in Caleb’s grasp. Caleb smiled back, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of Molly’s shorts and pulling the tiefling forward so that they were flush.

“That’s very cute, _Spatzi,_ ” Caleb murmured, pressing kisses to Molly’s shoulder. Molly didn’t bother responding with words, instead he simply took a few steps forward, pushing Caleb towards the raised dais that held his bed. Caleb glanced behind him quickly, making sure not to trip over anything as Molly gave him a final light shove, sending him toppling back onto the mattress.

Minding his horns, Molly pulled his tank top over his head and quickly dropped his shorts to the ground, groaning at his cock finally being released from the confines of his tight pants. He climbed onto the bed after Caleb, laying out beside the human. Caleb pounced immediately, pressing light kisses all over Molly’s torso. He took a nipple between his teeth lightly, flicking over the hardened bud with his tongue and causing Molly to gasp.

“Gods! Caleb,” he panted, groaning again as Caleb switched sides, his hands roaming around Molly’s hips but never touching Molly where Molly wanted him. Every time it finally seemed as if Caleb was going to finally stroke Molly’s cock, the human changed direction, almost seeming to press kisses to every inch of Molly’s body. Eventually, frustrated, Molly snapped, “Touch me! _Please._ ”

“But I am touching you,” Caleb said. Molly didn’t need to see Caleb’s face to hear the smile in his voice. Little shit. Molly’s hips twitched as Caleb finally took his length into his hand and gave him a few firm strokes. Molly groaned as Caleb explored him, running his fingers gently over the ridges and piercings that adorned Molly’s cock. 

“Good gods, that feels amazing,” Molly mumbled, trying to twist to reach for the lube and condoms he kept in the bedside table. Caleb followed the direction of his eyes and reaching hand and reached over as well, finding the bottle and foil square quickly. Molly groaned and spread his legs as Caleb squeezed some lube onto his fingers and reached down, petting over Molly’s entrance lightly. The tiefling squirmed as his boyfriend pressed a singular finger inside of him, stroking lightly at Molly’s walls.

Caleb quickly added a second and a third finger, much to Molly’s delight. He sighed at the contact, yelping when Caleb crooked his fingers and pressed down on Molly’s prostate. At the sound, Caleb pulled his fingers out, wiping them on a tissue. Molly propped himself up, about to protest at the loss of the feeling of fullness, but his complaint died on his lips as he watched Caleb roll the condom on and spread lube over his cock.

“Are you ready, _Spatzi?_ ” Caleb asked, crawling over Molly. Molly grinned at him, nodding eagerly and whining, wrapping his tail around Caleb’s thigh to try to get him to move faster. Caleb chuckled and lined himself up. As he pressed in, the two lovers pressed their foreheads together, breath and groans of pleasure mingling.

“Cay...” Molly sighed, opening his eyes slightly to look at Caleb in the yellow glow of the fairy lights on his walls. Caleb stretched down to kiss him gently.

“What is it, Mollymauk?” Caleb asked, an overwhelmingly fond look in his eyes. Molly smiled, closing his eyes again.

“Nothing. I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

“I’m glad to be here, too, _Spatzi_ ,” Caleb said. Molly laid back, wrapping his legs and his tail around Caleb’s waist as Caleb began to move. Caleb thrust in and out slowly, gaining speed as he and Molly established a rhythm.

“Gods, it’s not enough,” Molly cried out, every few thrusts brushing his prostate and driving his pleasure higher, but nowhere near enough to tip him over the edge. Caleb tried to reach between them to grasp Molly’s cock, but the lack of support from his arm tipped him onto his side, pulling Molly with him. They both started laughing, wrapping their arms around each other and kissing through their giggles, the kisses becoming more smiles pressed together than actual kisses.

Molly pressed lightly on Caleb’s shoulder as their laughter died down, rolling him over so that Molly could ride him. Once he was resettled, Molly planted his hands on Caleb’s chest firmly, pushing up and off of his boyfriend before rocking back down. Caleb groaned and thrust up to meet Molly, the two reestablishing their rhythm quickly.

Riding Caleb hard, Molly begged, “Touch me! I need your hand, gods, _Caleb, gods!_ ”

Caleb assented, grabbing Molly’s tail with one hand and bringing the spade to his mouth, nibbling and kissing along the edge of the spade resulting in more gasping moans from Molly. With his other hand, he took Molly’s cock, stroking him quickly. With the change in angle, Caleb was hitting Molly’s sweet spot every time. At this rate, Molly was not going to last much longer. He shook as his orgasm raced up his spine, crying out, “More! Harder! Calebcalebcaleb _CALEB!_ ” as he came.

Broken Zemnian was the only thing that Molly could determine as Caleb thrust into him another few times before letting out a high pitched whine. Molly collapsed on top of Caleb, both of them breathing heavily. When Caleb began to soften and slip out, Molly rolled off, gesturing towards his closet when Caleb asked about cleaning up. Caleb retrieved a washcloth and slipped out the door to the bathroom. Molly heard the water run and saw the light flick on as he lay back, body still tingling with the sensation of being well-fucked.

Caleb returned as quickly as he had left and crawled back onto the bed with Molly, cleaning them both up. Molly grabbed the rag from him and tossed it in the direction of his hamper before wiggling under the covers. He gestured for Caleb to do the same, tucking himself into the human’s side when Caleb assented.

“That was amazing, darling,” Molly said quietly. “Better than I could have imagined.”

“ _Ja_... you are amazing, Molly,” Caleb agreed, pressing a kiss to Molly’s horn. “I lo—I really have enjoyed this evening.”

Molly tangled his legs with Caleb’s and wound his tail around the human’s waist, wriggling into his nest of pillows and quilts, which was only improved by his boyfriend in his arms. He was just aware enough of the man in his arms as he drifted off to sleep to hear Caleb quietly start to snore.

_AFAB Molly_

Molly wrenched open the door and tore through, pulling Caleb in after him. The door was barely closed before Caleb was pressing him against it, hands on either side of his head and pressing burning kisses to Molly’s lips. Molly opened his mouth to Caleb’s probing tongue, moaning wantonly as Caleb shoved his knee between Molly’s legs and pressed up. He let Caleb explore his mouth at the human’s leisure, twisting his forked, pierced tongue around Caleb’s boring one. Molly’s hands grabbed at the fabric of Caleb’s sweater, the material giving him not as good of a hold on the other man as he would have liked.

“You’re beautiful, too, you know,” Molly said when they broke for air, leaning his forehead against Caleb’s shoulder and panting lightly. One of Caleb’s hands found Molly’s chin, bringing his face back to Caleb’s so that the human could continue to kiss him ragged. Caleb was actively moaning into Molly’s mouth now, hands running over the skin at Molly’s ribs that was left exposed by his crop top.

Turning his head so that Caleb’s next onslaught of affection glanced off of his cheek instead of pulling him back in, Molly placed his hands gently on either side of Caleb’s face. “I’m not lying, love.”

“I know, Mollymauk,” Caleb said, pressing their foreheads together.

Molly took that as a sign to continue with his praise, “Every time you look at me with your brilliant eyes and your full focus is on me, I feel like a Winter’s Crest tree, lit up from tail to horns.”

“ _Schatz_ , I—” Caleb started, but Molly put a gentle finger over his lips.

“Let me finish,” he said. Caleb nodded and kissed the pad of Molly’s finger lightly. Molly giggled and continued, “Your hair is so soft and it’s so _nice_ to run my hands through. Your clothes are so well fitted and show off your... everything so nicely.”

“Molly,” Caleb started again, but Molly was on a roll.

“You are _so_ smart! Whenever you talk about your job, I have no idea what you're saying, but I love watching you talk about it, because you obviously care about your work a lot. And then whenever I’m confused you explain it to me without talking down to me!”

“That is just common courtesy,” Caleb muttered.

Molly smiled at him and kept going: “Your... your fingers,” he choked out, head clouding with the image of what he was asking for. “They have to be so dexterous to work with those tiny parts that you showed me tonight... I can’t wait to have them inside of me.”

At that, Caleb was back to kissing Molly with a vengeance, almost like he was making up for the time lost while Molly was babbling. Molly threw himself into the kiss with equal vigor, unable to stop his hands from working their way into Caleb’s hair. He felt Caleb palm at the rapidly growing dampness he felt between his thighs and groaned, tugging at Caleb’s hair.

Caleb opened his mouth and pulled back, following the pull of Molly’s hands and whining, a high pitched and needy sound. Molly let go of his hair immediately, cursing, “Shit shit shit, I’m so sorry, I got carried away.”

His boyfriend grabbed one of Molly’s hands and messily guided it back to his head, looking at him through hooded eyes. Molly wound his hand back into Caleb’s hair and pulled experimentally, delighting when Caleb pulled in the opposite direction and whined again. It took a moment for it to dawn on Molly exactly what was happening, but when he caught on, he pulled Caleb back to his mouth urgently. _Gods,_ how did he get so lucky?

“Cay...” Molly hummed when they broke apart again.

“ _Ja,_ Molly?” Caleb said, his breathing heavy.

“Gods!” Molly exclaimed, looking across at Caleb, his eyes shining. “Darling, I’ve imagined you pinning me to this door like this six ways from Da’leysen.”

“ _Ja?_ ” Caleb said smiling, his accent thick with arousal. “Tell me, Mollymauk, what happens in this fantasy?”

“Well...” Molly started, bringing images to his mind. “First, you pin me to the door and kiss me ragged. Once my lips are swollen and kiss-bruised—”

“Check,” Caleb said, smirking at him. Molly swallowed thickly.

“Yeah, no kidding,” he said. “Once my lips are kiss-bruised, you let me suck your cock, but don’t cum from my mouth. Then, right as you’re about to cum, you tell me and I pull back, you taking me by the horn and flinging me to the bed.”

Caleb groaned, tipping forward and pressing his forehead to Molly’s shoulder this time, hand still resting on Molly’s now aching cunt. Molly continued, “Then, you kneel between my legs and tease me until I’m begging for you, you only giving me relief once you think I’ve earned it.”

“And what if I don’t think you’ve earned it?” Caleb asked, straightening to look Molly in the eye. Molly was confused.

“Pardon?” he said, his brow furrowing.

“What if I don’t think you’ve begged prettily enough?” Caleb asked. Molly bit back a whine in his throat, but it was helpless, every part of his body was screaming out for Caleb to touch him, to rip his clothes off and force him to his knees. Caleb continued, “What if I don’t think you’ve pleased me enough with your mouth, _Spatzi?_ ”

“Gods,” Molly choked out, hips twitching as Caleb pressed up a little harder with the heel of his hand. “ _Caleb!_ ”

“Answer my question, Molly,” Caleb said, something hard and commanding entering his voice. He continued to tease Molly, fingers threatening to slip past the small strip of fabric that was the only separation between Caleb and Molly’s center.

“I will do whatever you ask of me to get your cock in me, Caleb,” Molly said, wrapping his arms around Caleb’s neck. Caleb darted in and pressed a kiss to Molly’s pulse point, smiling against his neck.

“There’s a good boy.”

Molly scoffed, which turned into a moan as he gently pushed Caleb back, letting his arms slide from Caleb’s shoulders as he sank to his knees. Caleb sucked in a breath and placed a tentative hand on Molly’s horn as Molly fiddled with his belt buckle. Feeling the touch, Molly looked up and smiled, nodding his head slightly to let Caleb know that this was okay. Once he was through Caleb’s belt, Molly made short work of the human’s fly on his jeans. He pulled Caleb's pants down slowly, bringing his hands back up to let his fingers dance along the waistline of Caleb’s boxers. Caleb gasped at the light touches of Molly’s fingertips and the points of the eight talons that he did not keep cropped short.

Pulling Caleb’s boxers down so that the garment bared the divots in Caleb’s hips, but did not yet free his prick from its confines, Molly began to press light kisses across his stomach. Caleb gasped at each point of contact, Molly feeling Caleb’s cock twitch under his chin more than once. He smiled and chuckled against the human’s warm skin before pulling back and looking up.

“Are marks okay, darling?” Molly asked sweetly. “You’re so delicious, I can hardly help but devour you.”

“ _Gotter, Molly, ja, ja,_ ” Caleb whined in Zemnian. Despite his thick accent, Molly had picked up enough of the language over the last few months to know an enthusiastic yes when he heard one. “ _Ich möchte sehen, wo du gewesen bist._ ”

“That last part I don’t understand, dear,” Molly chuckled. “You’ll have to say that one in Common.”

“ _Ach, tut mir_ —sorry, Molly,” Caleb said, blushing. “Please, mark me. I want to see where you’ve been.”

“Don’t have to ask me twice,” Molly said quietly before squinting up at Caleb. “Wait, actually, you did.”

The two lovers looked at each other for a moment before dissolving into laughter, Molly leaning his head against Caleb’s hip for support while Caleb leaned against the door above him. Eventually, when they both recovered themselves, Molly pressed a quick kiss to the apex of the trail of fine red hair the lead downward from Caleb’s belly button. Caleb gasped at the contact again, trying his best not to thrust his hips into Molly’s face. Molly grinned and set to work on Caleb’s hip, sucking a love bite just to the side of the divot. Caleb cried out when he felt Molly’s fangs, trembling even more than he had been previously.

Molly sat back on his heels and surveyed his work, admiring the developing bruise on the human. His skin was so pale that he bruised almost instantly. Molly recalled one time where Caleb had walked into a door frame incorrectly and knocked his arm, the entire appendage coloring purple over the next few days.

He shook his head slightly to stop his mind from wandering and returned to the task at hand. Molly hooked his fingers over the waistband of Caleb’s boxers and pulled the offending garment down, sucking in a breath as Caleb’s cock sprung free of its confines. Reaching out, he traced a singular finger up the underside of Caleb’s dick, imagining all of the possibilities at hand. Caleb jerked at the contact, still leaning over against the door and looking down at Molly. Molly cast his eyes upward again, pressing a light kiss to Caleb’s head as he made eye contact with the ginger.

“ _Gotter, bitte, Molly,_ ” Caleb whined, his thighs visibly tensing. Molly grinned at him, his fangs flashing in the string lights that illuminated the room, and took Caleb into his mouth. Caleb gasped and shook as Molly traced his tongue up the underside of Caleb’s shaft, pressing the piercing directly under the head as he pulled away.

Molly took a few slow, deep breaths, forcing himself to relax, playing with Caleb’s slit with the tips of his tongue as he did. Caleb continued to make such wonderful noises as Molly continued to tease him, suddenly surging forward and taking Caleb to the hilt. Molly swallowed around Caleb, closing his eyes and moaning around Caleb’s cock. He had wanted this for _so long,_ and he was sure now that Caleb had as well.

“ _Scheiße, ich_ — _ich bin nah,_ ” Caleb cried out after mere moments of Molly’s ministrations, his hand tightening on Molly’s horn, pushing him away. Molly followed the direction willingly, not wanting to push Caleb into something he didn’t want, despite how much fun he was having.

“What is it, darling?” he asked, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand as Caleb caught his breath above him.

“ _Scheiße,_ ” Caleb swore again. “You are very, _very_ good at that, _Spatzi._ ”

“Thank you!” Molly said brightly, but his expression soured. “Was something wrong, though? Did I hurt you? Why did you want me to stop?”

“You are so good at that,” Caleb started, straightening and pushing his pants all the way down to his ankles so that he could kick his way free of them, “that I was ready to spill myself down your throat. That was better than I ever could have imagined.”

Molly blinked, standing to help Caleb pull his shirt and sweater over his head. “You imagined me sucking your dick?”

When the shirt came off of Caleb’s head, the human was blushing. “ _Ja,_ ” he said quietly.

“Mr. Caleb!” Molly scoffed, a half smirk forming on his face. “What other fantasies have you had about me?”

“I will tell you later,” Caleb said, capturing Molly’s waist in his hands and rubbing at the waistband of Molly’s shorts. “Right now, we are enacting yours, _ja?_ ”

“ _Ja, ja,_ ” Molly responded, grinning and wiggling in Caleb’s grasp. Caleb smiled back, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of Molly’s shorts and pulling the tiefling forward so that they were flush.

“That’s very cute, _Spatzi,_ ” Caleb murmured, pressing kisses to Molly’s shoulder. Molly didn’t bother responding with words, instead he simply took a few steps forward, pushing Caleb towards the raised dais that held his bed. Caleb glanced behind him quickly, making sure not to trip over anything as Molly gave him a final light shove, sending him toppling back onto the mattress.

Minding his horns, Molly pulled his tank top over his head and quickly dropped his shorts to the ground, sucking in a gasp at the cool air of the room on his very damp thighs. He climbed onto the bed after Caleb, laying out beside the human. Caleb pounced immediately, pressing light kisses all over Molly’s torso, but especially to the only purposeful slivers of scar tissue on Molly’s chest. He took a nipple between his teeth lightly, flicking over the hardened bud with his tongue and causing Molly to gasp and writhe.

“Oh Gods! Caleb!” he panted, groaning again as Caleb switched sides, his hands roaming around Molly’s hips but never touching Molly where Molly wanted him. Every time it finally seemed as if Caleb was going to dip his hand between Molly’s legs and run a finger over his slit, the human changed direction, almost seeming to want to press kisses to every inch of Molly’s body before traveling lower. Eventually, frustrated, Molly snapped at him, “Touch me! _Please._ ”

“But I am touching you,” Caleb said. Molly didn’t need to see Caleb’s face to hear the smile in his voice. Little shit. Molly rolled his hips just as Caleb’s hand passed over the apex of his legs, causing the pad of Caleb’s finger to graze over his clit. The proverbial dam broken, Caleb couldn’t keep his hands off of Molly, pressing one finger inside of him and quickly making it two, his thumb teasing Molly’s clit as he fucked Molly on his fingers. Molly sighed at the contact, yelping a little when Caleb crooked his fingers inside of Molly, pressing down and making the tiefling see stars.

When Caleb determined that Molly was wet enough, he withdrew his hand, causing Molly to writhe at the loss. The tiefling was about to protest when Caleb caught his eye, taking the two fingers that had been inside of Molly into his mouth and sucking on them, moaning at the taste. Molly’s mouth fell open, watching this display. He pushed up, rolling over and straddling Caleb’s hips, kissing the human fiercely. 

“ _Scheiße,_ ” Caleb said, sitting up and putting his arms around Molly, but seemingly looking for something on the floor at the foot of the bed. Molly raised an eyebrow questioningly and Caleb explained, “Condoms?”

“Oh, right,” Molly said, swinging a leg back over Caleb and going to rummage in his bedside table. He pulled out a condom and tossed it at Caleb, who failed to catch it, but retrieved the prophylactic and rolled it on quickly. Molly grinned at him again, crawling over to resume his position on the tops of Caleb’s thighs. “You ready?”

“ _Ja,_ ” Caleb said simply, his hands resting on Molly’s hips to help steady the tiefling as he rose up, reaching between his legs to guide Caleb’s cock into himself. The two lovers sighed as Molly sank down, adjusting to the stretch. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to Caleb’s gently, their breath mingling.

“Cay...” Molly sighed, opening his eyes slightly to look at Caleb in the yellow glow of the fairy lights on his walls. Caleb stretched up to kiss him gently.

“What is it, Mollymauk?” Caleb asked, an overwhelmingly fond look in his eyes. Molly smiled, closing his eyes again.

“Nothing. I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

“I’m glad to be here, too, _Spatzi_ ,” Caleb said. Molly straightened back up and planted his hands on Caleb’s chest firmly, pushing up and off of his boyfriend before rocking back down. Caleb groaned and thrust up to meet Molly, the two quickly establishing a rhythm. Molly tried to press his own fingers to his clit, but the motion unbalanced him, sending him sprawling onto Caleb’s chest. The human wrapped his arms around Molly as they both laughed, the kisses that they shared becoming smiles pressed against each other rapidly.

Molly straightened up and began to move again, grinning down at his boyfriend. He rode Caleb mercilessly, begging Caleb to touch him, to help him find release, “Touch me! I need your fingers, gods, _Caleb, gods!_ ”

Caleb assented, pressing his fingers to the spot where the two of them joined, rubbing small circles against Molly’s clit. The pleasure of Caleb inside of him and driving him relentlessly tore at Molly’s self control. At this rate, Molly was not going to last much longer. He shook as his orgasm raced up his spine, crying out, “Harder! Calebcalebcaleb _CALEB!_ ” as he came.

Broken Zemnian was the only thing that Molly could determine as Caleb thrust into him another few times before letting out a high pitched whine. Molly collapsed on top of Caleb, both of them breathing heavily. Molly eventually rolled off of Caleb, quickly snuggling into the human’s side as his eyes began to droop closed.

“Mmm, before we get too comfortable, _Schatz_ ,” Caleb said, detangling his arm from Molly and sitting up. Caleb walked out of the room and Molly saw the bathroom light flick on and the water start to run as he lay in the afterglow.

Caleb returned as quickly as he had left and crawled back onto the bed with Molly. Molly wiggled under the covers and gestured for Caleb to do the same, resuming his position tucked into the human’s side when Caleb assented.

“That was amazing, darling,” Molly said quietly. “Better than I could have imagined.”

“ _Ja_... you are amazing, Molly,” Caleb agreed, pressing a kiss to Molly’s horn. “I lo—I really have enjoyed this evening.”

Molly tangled his legs with Caleb’s and wound his tail around the human’s waist, wriggling into his nest of pillows and quilts, which was only improved by his boyfriend in his arms. He was just aware enough of the man in his arms as he drifted off to sleep to hear Caleb quietly start to snore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you there would be smut. I told you. >:3
> 
> Thank you to the lovely friends who have been commenting every week, it makes me so happy to see you appear in my inbox. <3


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